Is Maharashtra Ready for Final-Year Exams? Here’s What Profs Think

Maharashtra professors are divided over CM Thackeray’s decision to scrap final-year exams. 

(Photo: The Quint/Aroop Mishra)

Video Editor: Mohd Ibrahim

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s decision to cancel final-year college exams and evaluate students on the basis of scores obtained in previous semesters has drawn mixed reactions from professors in the state.

Maharashtra Federation of University & College Teacher Union president Tapati Mukhopadhyay says that the conduct of examinations in Maharashtra is not possible as colleges and universities are under lockdown.

“The whole examination process requires a lot of extra work with respect to question papers, answer sheets and the distribution... many people are appointed casually or temporarily for conducting exams. All this requires a long time, almost three months, for the preparation.”

Tapati Mukhopadhyay, President, MFUCTU

Mukhopadhyay is seconded by Rugved Deolekar, assistant professor at the Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Mumbai, who says that in such a situation, putting students through exams may not be a wise decision.

“So, even though as teachers we feel that cancellation of exams is not appropriate, from an overall perspective, I would say it is a significant decision,” he says.

But not everyone is convinced by CM Thackeray’s decision. Professor Nandini Sardesai, who’s a visiting faculty at Mumbai’s KC College, says that not conducting exams and grading students on the basis of the previous semesters would be inappropriate.

“How can the subjects taught in the second semester rely upon the scores that people got in their first semester, because the paper and the subjects are totally unrelated to each other.”

Professor Nandini Sardesai, KC College

Assistant Professor Rugved Deolekar suggests that all the universities can uniformly decide to have one or more common papers for students all over Maharashtra. For this purpose, he says that a common syllabus can be decided upon and students should be given some time for their preparation before an online exam is conducted.

“We can have MCQ-based question papers being set. Centers can be allocated throughout Maharashtra and students can be asked to register themselves online, where they can select the centre closest to them,” he said.