Examination must for all final year students, recommends V-Cs’ panel

LUCKNOW : The three-member panel of vice chancellors formed by the state government on May 13 to suggest measures on how to promote students to the next level across all UP universities and degree colleges without exams submitted its report to the office of additional chief secretary, higher education, Monika S Garg, here on Thursday.

“At the undergraduate level, all final year students will have to appear in examination. The exams of second year students can be conducted when Covid situation eases. First year students can be promoted without exam,” said a member of the committee.

“At PG level too, first year students can be promoted without exam while final year students will have to write their papers,” another vice chancellor said. The committee members, however, refused to divulge finer details of their suggestions to the press.

“Let the state government take a final call on our recommendations. We had formed separate sub committees for semester and annual examinations and suggested what we felt will be better from students’ point of view,” said one of the VCs who was part of the panel while requesting anonymity.

“We have given our point of view in a 5-page report and now it is up to the state government to take a decision,” said another member. The members said they met at least three times on a virtual platform before arriving at the consensus.

The committee comprised prof Alok Kumar Rai, vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, prof Vinay Kumar Pathak, vicechancellor of Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University, Kanpur and prof Krishna Pal Singh, vicechancellor of Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University in Bareilly. “It is a critical situation. Last year, students were promoted without exams under special circumstances. This year the situation is even worse,” said one of the VCs.

LU V-C Alok Rai had urged the government to allow promoting LU students without examinations even before the committee was formed.

The UGC, in the notice released on May 6, requested higher education institutions to keep offline examinations in abeyance during May 2021 to avoid physical gathering on campuses and also to provide much-needed relief to students, faculty, and the staff presently occupied in fighting the pandemic in one way or the other.