‘Promoting students on basis of previous exams will be cumbersome’

PATIALA: A day after Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh announced cancellation of all university and college exams and said that students will be promoted on the basis of the previous semester results, professors and teachers said it is going to be a cumbersome process and will involve a lot of technicalities.

“We need to look at a lot of aspects before evaluating the students’ performance on the basis of the previous results,” said Khushvinder Kumar, principal of the Patiala-based MM Modi College. He, however, said it was a welcome move as students’ safety is the first priority.

Authorities at Punjabi University, meanwhile, are waiting for strictures from the University Grants Commission before deciding their own criteria on the basis of the guidelines issued by director public instructions (DPI) of colleges, Punjab.

A professor said the university is yet to declare the results of several undergraduate and postgraduate courses for December2019 semester. “Even the internal assessment for May semester is incomplete as the second leg of mid-semester tests, which are considered for internal evaluation, are yet to be conducted,” the professor added. As per the directions of director public instructions (colleges), all the students in terminal or exit classes or semesters will be awarded degrees on the basis of their average grades, marks or CGPA of their previous exams or semesters. Students in intermediate classes will also be promoted to the next classes on the same criteria.

Ajaib Singh, president of democratic students’ organisation, said the government has taken a “pro-student” decision as it won’t be easy for students to come and take final exams amid the pandemic. “Moreover, the government has provided provisions for the students to improve their scores when the situation gets better,” he said.