UP govt forms three member panel of VCs for recommendation

LUCKNOW : The state government on Friday formed a committee consisting of three vicechancellors to suggest measures on how to promote students to the next semester without exams across all universities and degree colleges of the state.

The committee is expected to submit its recommendations in a week because in this Covid-19 situation conducting the physical examination is a difficult task, an official said.

The vice-chancellors in the committee are prof Alok Kumar Rai, vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, prof Vinay Kumar Pathak, vice-chancellor of Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University, Kanpur and prof Krishna Pal Singh, vice-chancellor of Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University in Bareilly, according to a letter issued by Abdul Samad, special secretary, UP government.

“It is a critical situation. Last year students were promoted without exams under special circumstances. This year the situation is even worse. We had to work out a solution,” said Prof Vinay Kumar Pathak.

Lucknow University vicechancellor prof Alok Rai had already sent a letter to the government to allow to promote students without examinations. He said, “The three-member committee will discuss and try to reach out at a consensus on how to promote students.”

University Grants Commission had recently stated that it had requested the universities to keep the offline examinations in abeyance during May 2021. The UGC in the notice released on May 6, had requested the higher education institutions to keep the offline examinations in abeyance during May 2021 to avoid physical gathering at the campuses and also to provide much-needed relief to the students, faculty, and the staff who are presently occupied in fighting Covid-19 in one way or the other.

Last year also the state government had formed a panel headed by Chaudhary Charan Singh University (Meerut) vicechancellor prof NK Taneja to recommend promoting students to the next semester without exams.

After a committee of four vice-chancellors recommended the cancellation of annual examinations in universities across the state given a spike in Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said a final decision on the issue will be taken by the state government.

Finally, in July it was decided that in Uttar Pradesh Universities, the students of final year or final semester for undergraduate and postgraduate courses were asked to appear in the final examinations, while the first and second-year students of undergraduate level and first-year students of postgraduate level were promoted to next class without exams, on basis of internal assessments as per the UGC guidelines.