UP: Tech edu dept orders exams for all engg, polytechnic students in state

Final year exams of engineering students of technical universities and polytechnic institutes in the state will be held in third week of July while the exams of students of other classes (first, second and third years) will be held in the last week of July. The exams to be held in online mode will be of objective type. 

“The state government has taken a decision to hold final year exams of all students under technical education department in third week of July. Other than final, exams will take place in last week of July,” tweeted secretary, technical education, Alok Kumar on Saturday.

“Detailed guidelines will be issued by technical universities under broad framework given by the state government by Monday,” he said in reply to a query raised by a student on twitter. Kumar said there will be online exam even for pharma and polytechnic students too. The order is applicable to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), Lucknow; Harcourt Butler Technical University (HBTU), Kanpur, and Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology (MMMUT), Gorakhpur.

According to Kumar, a software is being developed that will operate in all devices and processors, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops with minimum connectivity. He said students may even appear in the exam from home.

The decision, however, left thousands of engineering and polytechnic students disappointed. As per them, the state government on Tuesday decided to promote all first year and first semester undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in universities and degree colleges across Uttar Pradesh without exams in view of the Covid-19 situation.

Only the final year, final semester or those second year students who were promoted last year without an exam will have to appear in truncated examinations which will have a shorter duration of 90 minutes instead of three hours with 50% less questions, in August.

Some students took to twitter to express their concerns. They said for last few months their regular teaching got badly hit as it was difficult to learn from online classes given poor internet connectivity.

“At times, teachers are inaudible, sometimes they can’t hear us,” said an AKTU student. Many students demanded that state government to ask universities and colleges to resume physical classes first and then hold examination in August and September so that they could be better prepared.

“However, the state government has now decided to go ahead with online exam starting third week of July,” an official of technical education department said.