Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Tuesday said that the decision on conducting the final year examination is with Vice-Chancellors of universities as per the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, reports Times of India. Thus, the decision of cancelling the final year exam taken by Chief Minister Uddav Thackeray was not fair to the graduating batch of the year 2020.
Earlier on Saturday, the CM had announced that the final year exam this year for all the universities in the state will be cancelled and scoring will be done based on internal assessment and performance in previous semesters/years. Students who wish to improve the scores can appear in the exam that will be conducted in the month of October.
The governor termed the decision of the CM as unprecedented and said it was made without any profound thinking on legal repercussions, adds the report. The governor said that the final decision regarding the conduct of the exam for the final year will be taken in consonance with the provision of the Act.
Governor conveyed his thoughts on the matter via a letter to CM and said he was surprised to learn about the decision via media reports. He said in the letter that the decision would jeopardize the future of students. Governor said that he is still waiting for CM’s response in the matter.
The report said that governor was miffed that the final report of a committee formed by Minister of Higher and Technical Education to explore various options to conduct the exam has been sent to the secretary of the ministry but has not been shared with the him.
TOI reports that the governor was of the opinion that exams cannot be made optional. He stressed that students of medicine, architecture, and law need to register with professional bodies so as to get a license and such bodies cannot register the students without evaluating them on established parameters.
He also said that if education boards like ICSE and CBSE and other universities have decided to conduct the exams in spite of the COVID-19 situation, then the decision to not conduct the college and university exams is arbitrary.
It should be noted that UGC and HRD Ministry has recommended universities to promote students of the first and second year without exams but has given no such instructions regarding the final year exams.
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