Practicals, Viva of final year exams to be conducted online or on phone, Universities to decide on format of theory exams

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Mumbai: In a first of sorts, students in Maharashtra will give the practical exams of their final year exams either online or on telephone from within the confines of their own homes due to Covid health concerns. The practical exams and viva exams would be conducted either on telephone, Skype or other meeting platforms between September 15-30 keeping in mind the state directive to ensure exams without students having to step out.  

The theory exams scheduled from October 1 onwards though will be conducted either online or blended mode or if both are not possible than pen-paper mode, state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant informed. Decisions on the exam format on whether the paper would be multi-choice questions (MCQ) or assignment based, or open book method or option mark recognition (OMR), will be decided by each of the individual universities. These were part of the 11 recommendations made by a core committee of state university vice-chancellors that were submitted to the state government on September 4. 

Individual universities will now decide on the exam dates and formats and convey to the state by noon of September 7. The chancellor of state universities, Maharashtra’s governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has already broadly approved the formats. Universities will have to conduct re-exams for students who fail to appear for these exams. The Allowed to Keep Terms (ATKT) exams would also be conducted around the same time. 

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Samant also informed that universities would provide provisional certificates based on their past Semesters to students pursuing studies abroad to facilitate their admissions process there. 

Convenor of the National Forum for Quality Education Dr Kushal Mude told thenews21.com: “It’s completely impossible to conduct practicals online or through phone. But, now there is no way out now. Already five months have been lost and students have lost their interest to learn. Most of the other academic year students have already moved on to next academic year with their online classes already having started. But, this particular batch has suffered the most due to this long delay.”   

He added: “Taking exams online isn’t easy. Even the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) gave up on the idea of taking virtual proctored examinations and instead chose to promote students based on past semester scores instead.”  

Meanwhile, the railways will operate special trains between Mumbai and Kolhapur, Madgaon, Sawantwadi from September 4 – 7 to facilitate students taking the exams of National Defence Academy (NDA) and Naval Academy (NA).