ABVP writes to UGC raising students’ demand for offline exams

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Thursday submitted a memorandum based on students’ suggestions to the expert committee formed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) on the issues faced by the education sector due the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ABVP claimed that the students have appealed to the committee to give up idea of conducting online examinations.

The detailed memorandum included suggestions from students from across various institutes of higher education in Delhi, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Ambedkar University and The Delhi Technological University, among others, over issues being faced by the student fraternity amid the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

ABVP claimed that the inputs were gathered through Google forms after the students’ wing of the RSS reached out to over 3,000 students with questions regarding conducting online examinations and internal assessments, seeking their opinions and suggestions.

Among the suggestions sent to the committee, the students’ body appealed to not adopt online mode of examination, saying no immediate decision on the same should be taken without wider consultation with all the stakeholders (teachers and students).

In the memorandum, the ABVP also appealed to the UGC committee that priority should be given to holding examination for the final year students.

“We suggest that they give their exams via regular mode (offline) whenever the lockdown is completely lifted,” the ABVP said in the memorandum.

It added that for the final year students, the course must be restricted to the completed part, so that exams can be completed as soon as possible.

“The course content for final year students’ exams should be reduced to the course which was already completed in the classrooms prior to the implementation of the lockdown,” the ABVP said.

For the first and second year students, the respondents suggested that if the lockdown of academic institutions gets extended for two more months, the examinations for first and second year students of undergraduate courses and first year students of postgraduate courses should be shifted to future semesters. Number of papers of this semester may be evenly distributed in future semesters.

Apart from exam schedule, the students’ body demanded that no students should be forced to submit internal assessments online. The option of submission in offline mode should be given to students at all times, it said.

“The recommendations that we have submitted today to the University Grants Commission’s expert committee have been arrived upon after detailed deliberation and discussion with the students. The suggestions offered by the students have been attached with the memorandum. We have rejected the idea of online examination and we hope that any decision taken by the government will take into account the welfare of the students,” Sidharth Yadav, state secretary, ABVP Delhi, said.

–IANS