NEW DELHI: An UGC committee has recommended to the government cancelling examinations for final year students in universities and institutes of higher education across India and evaluating them based on the previous semester examinations and internal assessments instead.
The committee had been formed by the higher education regulator to suggest alternative ways of assessing university students in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic which has caused massive disruptions in schools and colleges.
The panel, headed by Haryana University vice-chancellor R C Kuhad, has said that the final semester examinations, due in July in most universities as per the revised academic calendar, can not be held due to the risk of exposure to lakhs of students, officials in the HRD ministry told The New Indian Express.
It has therefore been suggested that the examinations be cancelled and marks for the final examination be extrapolated based on the past performance of each student.
The committee further said that the students, who are not happy with the final marks being given to them based on previous examinations, can be given a chance to improvise their scores by taking examinations later when the pandemic subsides.
Based on these recommendations, the UGC is expected to release comprehensive guidelines for higher education institutes later this week, officials added.
The recommendations are meant to guide over 40 central universities and hundreds of state, private and deemed to be universities and colleges.
The UGC panel has also recommended that the new session planned in July for old students and in August for fresh batches should be deferred to October.
The recommendations came at a time when technical institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology are mulling to start the new session only through online mode in the wake of the pandemic.
IITs, sources said, have asked the HRD ministry to permit Ph.D. students to go to the campuses while the B Tech and M Tech students be asked to stick to the online mode of learning.