While Telangana UG and PG exams for final year and final semester students could have supposedly started tomorrow (June 20), the state education minister has hinted that Telangana might finally cancel all the final exams for degree courses in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decision was proposed at a meeting conducted by Education Minister Sabita Indra Reddy on Thursday along with officials of Telangana State Council for Higher Education (TSCHE).
Suggestions were sought from the officials including Principal Secretary of Education Chitra Ramachandran, Navin Mittal, Papi Reddy, Syed Omar Jaleel and other university officials on the matter.
The education minister said that the final decision regarding the UG and PG final year or final semester exams would be taken by Telangana Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao.
How will students be promoted?
As per the discussion, Telangana wouldn’t conduct the degree exams and the first and second year students would be promoted to the next year directly while the final year students would be evaluated on the basis of internal exam marks and the marks received in the previous years or the previous 5 semesters.
How do the UGC guidelines feature in the decision?
The education minister said that the UGC decision for Osmania University and JNTU would be implemented for this as well, and asked the officials to look into the exam process of other universities in the state.
In late April, Osmania University informed through a notice shared on its social media handles: “Telangana State decided not to detain any degree students studying in the first and second years. However, students need to clear the backlogs next year.”
The statement further said: “Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) chairman T Papi Reddy said that although degree examinations will be conducted, no student of 1st and 2nd year will be detained.”
But at the time, it had said that final year students would need to appear for exams. That decision is being modified now.
On April 27, UGC announced in its guidelines that final year and final semester exams can be held between July 1 and July 15, while the intermediate semester or intermediate year exams can be held from July 16 to July 31.
It made other suggestions such as conducting shorter duration exams, and asked universities to give students projects instead of conducting practical exams.
That is why in certain states, the calls for cancelling final year exams were being termed as a breach of UGC guidelines.
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Officials in favour of cancelling exams
Talks about cancelling exams have been on ever since the Telangana SSC exams were cancelled. The officials are in agreement about promoting first and second year students and evaluating final year and final year students of BA, BSc and BCom on the basis of their previously-received marks.
What did TSCHE say at the end of May?
As per a TSCHE notice released at the end of May, examinations should only be conducted for the final semester students of all UG and PG programmes in Telangana, including backlog.
Guidelines had been released on the matter suggesting that the exams should be of 2 hours instead of 3 hours and the question papers should be modified by introducing more choices.
The Telangana higher education board said that intermediate exams could be conducted after colleges opened in November- December.
Students of intermediate semesters may be promoted to next semester despite the number of backlogs, it said.
In the case of Conventional UG Programmes, TSCHE said that examination can be conducted in two sessions, while for the practical examinations, TSCHE left the decision in the hands of concerned colleges.
The council recommended that exams could begin from June 20, 2020.
Courtesy: India Today
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