UGC Vs Students: Why Mandatory Final-Sem Exams Have Sparked a Row?

Exams have become a source of anxiety, stress and confusion for final year college students in India.

Weeks after #StudentsLivesMatter trended on Twitter, over 30 students from across the country including a COVID+ student moved the Supreme Court against the guidelines by the University Grants Commission (UGC) that mandated the conducting of the final semester or final year examinations by 30 September.

How do we conduct exams without risking exposure? How do we wrap the academic year without exams when educational institutions have been for 5 months? The pandemic has presented these challenges before academic institutions, students, their parents and teachers. Initially several states had decided to cancel the final-year exams in light of the pandemic, but the UGC guidelines from 7 July that directed an offline-online hybrid mode of exams for final years may force colleges to revisit that decision.

But is it a sound decision to make at such a time where students' careers are hanging by a thread? Could there have been an alternative solution to this?

Producer and Host: Shorbori Purkayastha Guests: Advocate Anubha Sahai, India Wide Parents Association, Debaditya Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor of English, Kazi Nazrul University

Editor: Shelly Walia

Music: Big Bang Fuzz

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