Decision on exams in higher, tech edu must be taken soon: CM

Chief inister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday suggested to officials that the decision about examinations in higher and technical education institutions must be taken soon. He said this at a meeting of Team-9 attended by senior officials.

The department concerned should discuss the issue with the universities to ensure requisite action regarding the examinations, he said.

He also said a system should be put in place that keeps the interest of students above all.

The state government had on May 13 formed a committee of three vice chancellors to suggest measures on how to promote students to the next semester without exams across all universities and degree colleges because conducting physical examination was a difficult task amid the Covid-19 situation, an official said.

The committee comprised prof Alok Kumar Rai, vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, prof Vinay Kumar Pathak, vice-chancellor of AKTU, and prof Krishna Pal Singh, vice-chancellor of Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University in Bareilly. On May 20, the committee submitted its report to the office of additional chief secretary (higher education) Monika S Garg.

AKTU (APJ Abdul Kalam University), Lucknow, on Friday decided to wait for the instructions of the state government on whether it should hold its upcoming examination for 2020-21 session or not.

For the last several weeks, AKTU students have been running a social media campaign, pleading with chief minister and the technical education department to promote them to the next level without exams just like the Centre and the state government scrapped the class 10 and 12 board examinations due to Covid-19.

One such student, Akshaya Mishra, tweeted, “Sir, please don’t take exams at least till next month. Postpone it for a month so that we prepare ourselves mentally. Recently the peak of Corona has passed. I lost my friend and know three of my friends who lost their father due to Covid last month. We are not in state of mind to give exam.”

“In my opinion there shouldn’t be any exam. During the online classes held earlier, we faced many problems. Many students struggled as they were not able to concentrate on studies,” says Faizanuddin Khan in a tweet.

Aditya Singh tweeted, “It’s a tough time for all. We are unable to study properly during online classes and we as students are really mentally stressed because of online class, assignment and performance pressure. Wondering why AKTU is thinking to held exams offline.”

Vaibhav Sharma tweeted, “We request this is not the right time to take exams. We are not mentally prepared. Please do something in this regard.”