Ever since the pandemic has become a part of our lives, everything turned upside down. It was like everything came falling apart especially for final year students. Colleges got shut for more than 6 months where we students attended, online classes, gave assignments, and appeared for online tests (OBE also).
The final years were out there not knowing how their future will be like, they weren’t even sure if their final exams will take place or not.
Amid this pandemic, students are now expected to appear for the offline examination, 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. The University Grants Commission(UGC) recently laid down guidelines requesting the colleges to conduct examination latest by the end of this September. *Final year students crying in the corner*
Also read: 3 Alternative Options of Conducting Final Year Exams | GGSIPU
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.
As per final year students “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 the decision was made on our behalf without asking what we want.”
“Secondly, since lockdown was announced, we the students decide to go back to our home towns and now we’re are expected to come back for our exams which is not safe and we students have so many questions like how sure are the university authorities that everything will be in control? we tend to panic, moments before giving exams and with the present situation, we will be more worried about getting affected by the virus instead of the exam.”
“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. But the question is that ‘How will we travel to the examination center? Because traveling in the metro seems impossible.”
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.
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.
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