PUNE: Petitioners who had moved the Bombay High Court seeking uniformity in examinations, on Wednesday demanded that all state universities conduct the examinations in an offline mode with only multiple-choice based questions.
At a meeting held on Wednesday attended by all the state university officials, the director of higher education, and the petitioners, in their representation, also told the universities to release question banks and declare the results by July 15 so that students can easily apply for jobs and higher education courses.
Dhanraj Mane, director of higher education, said that he will be sending the letter from the petitioners to the state government for a final decision.
A petition seeking uniform examination and timely results in all the state universities was filed on last Friday with the Bombay high court which came up for hearing on Monday. The court had directed the state government to hear the petitioners on Wednesday and consider their suggestions in accordance with the law.
Kalpesh Yadav, one of the petitioners who attended the meeting, said Mumbai university has exams in both online and offline manner. Gondwana University in Gadchiroli, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University and Kavayitri Bahinabai Chaudhari North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon are conducting the examinations offline through the MCQ method while the remaining are opting for descriptive method.
“Nowhere is equality maintained. If this happens, only the students of a particular university may get good results, or their results may come early, while the students of other universities may be automatically eliminated from the competition. Hence, we demanded uniformity. Moreover, in most universities, most parts of the syllabi were taught online and even the teaching was done keeping in mind an MCQ method of examination. Then we do not understand why it was suddenly changed, leaving the students confused,” he added.
Balusha Bhasal, the first petitioner in the case, said that in their letter they have appealed to the universities to adopt the offline MCQ pattern for exams and also give out question banks.
“The universities must also declare the results latest by July 15 at least for the final year students so that they can apply for higher studies here or abroad or for jobs without any inconvenience. This will also ensure that the exams are completed on time and the next academic session starts without any delay,” she added.
Bhasal further said that if some universities have already completed their exams and if students have failed those exams, these students must be given grace marks and passed so that they do not suffer due to non-uniformity in the examination pattern.
