Nagpur: Three days after Nagpur University ended its flip-flop over the examination issue by opting for offline MCQ mode at home centres, other universities have come under severe pressure from students and their political outfits. Many universities have approached the state higher and technical education department to ensure parity in the exams.
The neighbouring Gondwana University (GU), which had already announced offline papers in the descriptive format, changed its decision on Monday after facing several protests by students’ organisations. Its Academic Council has adopted MCQ pattern in its emergent meeting in the evening.
Even Amravati University has been facing protests from students’ political outfits since Saturday to change the offline exam mode to MCQ from the descriptive, but its administration has adopted a “wait and watch” approach.
“We were under a lot of pressure from students after the RTMNU decision. Earlier, the same organisations had demanded descriptive type exams and we agreed to it. In fact, they convinced other students to do the same, citing the quality of education. However, after RTMNU decision, they approached us in a big way to adopt the same pattern,” GU VC Prashant Bokare.
Amravati University is still in waiting mode, even as it had already decided to conduct the descriptive type of offline exams. “Since the government had given clear guidelines about holding the exams, those should have been followed to maintain uniformity. However, after Jalgaon and particularly after RTMNU, protestors from all political outfits like Shiv Sena have approached us to follow suit. As only two universities have adopted the different pattern that students feel is easy, and other ten are not doing it, obviously there would be protests,” AU VC Dilip Malkhede.
Both Bokare and Malkhed, however, agreed that since the ‘Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016’ had granted autonomy to the universities, they can take the decision as per their convenience.
Endorsing their views, some RTMNU officials said since the pandemic effect had subsided and the government had lifted restrictions imposed under the ‘Disaster Management Act, 2005,’ the universities were free to take their independent decisions.
Malkhede said they had declared offline exams plans in January itself, and were fully ready for it. “We had decided to grant 15 minutes extra to students along with a big choice of questions to solve. As the government had directed all universities to hold online exams during Covid-19 pandemic, the change to regular mode after two years should be on the same lines.”
Bokare said GU would be adopting the same pattern of 50 questions like RTMNU and would offer flexibility to students. “Earlier, we had granted three hours and 45 minutes to the students to solve the paper, as per the government directives. Ultimately, it all boils down to the students’ employability, and for that we had started giving training to them after their graduation,” he said.
