UGC adamant on exams: Parents and Yuva Sena move to Supreme Court to postpone exams

While exams like JEE Mains and NEET are going to happen in Sept, university students don't want exams at all. And the UGC is adamant to take exams before September. While this may affect the next year, and careers of grad students, it also poses the problem of Coronavirus. So, the students have decided to move to the supreme court.

On Saturday, over 35 students have moved to the Supreme Court. Not just students, Indian Parents Association and Aaditya Thackeray via Yuva Sena have also filed a PIL in Supreme Court. When UGC decided to hold final-year exams before September 30, students took social media by storm. They want UGC to scrap the exams and score everyone based on their previous semesters.

Thus, these petitions, all, sought UGC to cancel final-year examinations for universities across the country. They want that the commission declares results based on past performance and internal assessment of a student. The petitioners have also sought to award mark sheets and degrees to successful students by July 31, 2020.

Aaditya Thackeray on his petition

On Saturday, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister and Yuva Sena President Aaditya Thackeray filed a writ petition in the court. He sought relief for lakhs of students throughout the country. He said, that the writ asks the UGC not to be stubborn about enforcing examinations when India has crossed the 10 lakh cases mark.

In a tweet, he further said that academic excellence can't be judged by one examination. "For academic excellence, we must calculate the aggregate marks of the past semesters. Beyond which, if students still feel the need to appear for an examination, they voluntarily may do so post COVID. The petition is for every student across the country, being forced to appear for an examination in a bizarre judgement of the situation by UGC and non-flexibility when it comes to human safety," he said.

What are students saying?

Many students pose this adamancy of UGC as delay in their career. They fear that they will lose an entire year due to this indecisiveness. The education system has infrastructural and demographic limitations, and many students have raised questions as to how unis can conduct exams when the course is not even complete.

We spoke to a few students and here's what they have to say.

UGC wants exams despite having colleges teach us. If they want to have us give exams for "students' benefit and competition", perhaps they should teach us. It is almost hypocrtical that they want us to give exams when they don;t really care if we are learning or not.

Their adamant insistence on conducting traditional pen and paper exams during the pandemic will spell doom for students. Another student told us:

Its cynical to conduct exams when the entire country is in a war-like situation with a virus. Competition is more important to them than lives?

With almost 4 lakh active cases in the country, these testing times are hard on students as it is. Amid this, Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, the lawyer of India Wide Parents' Association said that students and parents are worried about their future with examinations happening in September and results coming out in October or November. “Admissions in many of the universities in India and outside have begun and if a final-year student will sit for the exam in September, what will he do?” asked Sahai.

What did UGC say?

Despite students opposing it strongly, the UGC says that it will conduct exams for final-year students. Recently, UGC Secretary Professor Rajnish Jain said conducting final year exams for graduation or post-graduation courses is very important. Meanwhile, he added that the safety of students is their prime concern.

He added, "Universities and colleges can opt to conduct exams through online, offline, or blended mode. Guidelines for the conduct of exams have been issued based on the Standard Operating Procedure suggested by the Health Ministry. All states should conduct exams for final year students."

- 640 universities responded on the holding of varsity exams.

- 454 have either conducted the examination or are planning to conduct

- 177 universities are yet to decide on the conduct of the examination.