The West Bengal government on Monday, 31 August, directed state universities to conduct final semester college and universities examinations from 1-18 October, reported PTI.
The decision to hold the examinations was made during a virtual meeting between vice chancellors of universities and the state education minister, Partha Chatterjee.
According to a Supreme Court ruling on 28 August, states cannot promote final-year students without examination as ordered by University Grants Commission (UGC), while adding that they have the liberty to approach the UGC to seek postponement of the exams.
According to revised UGC guidelines, final-year university examinations may be conducted by the end of September, either online, offline or through a combination of both.
However, states can approach the UGC to have exams postponed beyond September, but will hot have the power to confer degrees on the basis of internal assessment.
Two universities in Kolkata, namely Jadavpur University and Presidency University, have already released final-year results on the basis on internal assessment and will now be required to conduct exams to promote the students, reported PTI.
The report further states that both universities and several other universities in the state followed the 6 July advisory of the higher education department of evaluation and 80:20 pattern of the previous semester performance.
For students of the first and second semester, there have been no change in guidelines. This means that universities can evaluate students on the basis of internal assessment and marks scored in previous semesters, if they are unable to conduct exams due to the prevailing situation.
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