Amid this pandemic, students are now expected to appear for offline examination. The University Grants Commission(UGC) recently laid down guidelines requesting the colleges to conduct examination latest by the end of this September and GGSIPU dropped its bomb the final year students yesterday. *Final year students crying in the corner*
Students know even after mock online tests, OBE (open book exams), the final year students are now expected to reach the exam center and physically appear for the exam.
Delhi records highest single-day spike with over 4,000 new COVID cases. The overall figure for COVID19 cases has crossed 2 Lakh now.
And amidst this, there are new guidelines to conduct offline mode of examinations for students, which can certainly be very dangerous. With respect to the current scenario of the spread of CoronaVirus, the conduction of offline exams has an immense amount of stress on the student population which is clearly taking a toll on them and their mental health.
Students also reached out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through an online petition. The petition is in regard to the withdrawal of UGC guidelines and cancellation of final year exams, which clearly didn’t have a result in the favour of students. The final year students have already been through several rounds of formal evaluation and assessments and only a small part of the total evaluation was pending, which could’ve been evaluated by the universities.
Yesterday the examination department of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) released a notice regarding the conduction of final year/ final semester exams in pen and paper (offline) mode. The exams will be held at various centers by following the norms of social distancing and other government guidelines.
The universities were given the option of conducting the final year exams online, offline, or mixed-mode, depending on the resources that the university and the students possess during the pandemic, but here we are aren’t we?
Also read: 3 Alternative Options of Conducting Final Year Exams | GGSIPU
The entire population of final year students is really frustrated at the moment, especially on social media, the outburst of students is observed, #StudentLivesMatter has been trending on Twitter.
IpuBuzz also conducted a survey amongst the students which highlighted that 91.9 % of students are against exams being conducted, out of which 24.6% of students cite being out of Delhi as their reason.
Due to this pandemic, the lockdown was announced in March, since then students have traveled back to their hometowns across India and as of now are expected to risk their health and lives, travel back to Delhi just to appear for the final exams.
As per guidelines, social distancing will be followed, students have so many questions like how sure are the university authorities that everything will be in control? Students tend to panic, moments before giving exams and with the present situation, they will be more worried about getting affected ut the virus instead of the exam.
Students living in various parts of Delhi have the biggest question of Traveling? Centers that will be allotted to students wouldn’t be in closer vicinity for everyone, not everyone owns a car or any sort of mode of transportation. The question is that ‘How would those students travel to the examination center? Because traveling in the metro seems impossible.
Watch this video of a student highlighting students’ concern: Aishe Ghosh On Exams Amid Pandemic
Social media, an incredibly large platform where issues can be addressed, students have non stop tried to reach out to the authorities about how conducting offline exams will have an adverse effect on the student population. The same population who are the future of this nation, how and why are we supposed to risk our own future?
The decision should’ve been in consideration of students, what is their opinion, what are their thoughts. it is defied logic to insist on examinations for final semester students while allowing first-year and second-year students to be assessed on the basis of internal assessments. Students pointed out that final year students had been completely assessed in previous semesters and internally assessed for the current semester and could easily be awarded degrees on the basis of this if first and second-year students could be “passed” with a much more limited assessment and without an examination. The insistence on using the barometer of a single “examination” as a tool to award the final degree defies the purpose of holistic education.
Education is one of the areas badly hit by continuous lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational institutions were the first to be shut down when the disease began to spread. Conducting end semester examinations even by September 30 would be extremely dangerous in its view.
There needs to be an understanding that it is absolutely unfair to ask students to sit for exams in the middle of a pandemic.