West Bengal Govt asks state universities to conduct final semester exams in October

The West Bengal government on Monday asked state universities to conduct final semester college and university examinations between October 1 and 18.

A senior official of the higher education department, who attended a virtual meeting between Vice-Chancellors and Education Minister Partha Chatterjee earlier in the day, said that it was unanimously decided that the final semester exams would be completed between October 1-18 in the backdrop of a Supreme Court order on the issue.

The Supreme Court on August 28 had said that states and universities cannot promote students without holding final-year exams by September 30.

However, a state has to approach UGC if it cannot conduct exams by September 30, the apex court had said.

The modalities of the exams, online or offline following COVID-19 protocols, would be decided by the university concerned in consultation with stakeholders, the official said.

The meeting also decided that final semester results for arts and science streams of Jadavpur University, and Presidency University, which had already been announced on the criteria of 80:20 assessment, will not be valid and the two universities would have to conduct the exams as well, he said.

The two reputed educational institutions along with another state-run university had broadly followed the July 6 advisory of the higher education department on evaluation and 80:20 pattern of previous semester performance.

However, the department will not issue any fresh advisory on the issue and leave it to the varsities to decide on the process of conducting the exams, the official said.

After the Supreme Court order, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said, "I have told our Education minister to look into the possibility of conducting the final-year exams in universities and colleges before Durga Puja in October. The options of both online and offline exams should be looked into."