The Indira Gandhi National Open University or IGNOU's decision to conduct examinations for intermediate semester or year students in December has enraged examinees and they called the move “injustice” and against the earlier guidelines by the government and the University Grants Commission or UGC, higher education regulator.
To take their point home, students have quoted a UGC advisory released in April which said grading of the students could be done based on internal evaluation adopted by the universities and marks can be awarded on the basis of performance in previous semester only, in case the situation does not appear to be normal in view of COVID-19.
On Wednesday, the Open University announced its decision to conduct the June Term End Examination or TEE for final year or end semester students in September and other students in December.
The open university said in a statement that it will conduct the June TEEs from the first week of September for the final year and final semester students of Master Degree, Bachelor's Degree, Post-Graduate Diploma, Diploma and Certificate programmes.
A Twitter user, while responding to the IGNOU decision said the university is ignoring the UGC guidelines released for intermediate students.
Sir IGNOU is ignoring students' voice aa well as UGC guidelines regarding the exams for intermediate year/semester students.Sir it needs urgent intervention from your side so that such arbitrary decisions should be overturned and justice be delivered to the students.
— shubham (@9Singh481) July 23, 2020
A student who is currently enroled in IGNOU said it will be "mental pressure" for him if in case the University asks him to write both June and December examinations at one go.
“We still do not know if we have to write the exam for two terms simultaneously in TEE December 2020. If that is the case, I would have to study for 14 courses, 7 from TEE June 2020 and 7 of Dec 2020. You can imagine the mental pressure one would go through. It is impossible for me to do that,” he told NDTV.
“IGNOU has made this announcement around 3 months after UGC issued guidelines that intermediate students will be promoted to subsequent semester and that exams would be cancelled,” he said.
NDTV contacted IGNOU officials for a response on students have complained, but, that did not elicit any response.
Meanwhile, a group of 31 students have filed a petition against the UGC on its decision to compulsorily conduct final year exams by September-end. The case has been listed for the hearing on July 27.
The students, from Karnataka, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Meghalaya and many other states, have sought to quash the UGC notice released on July 6, in which the Commission has asked universities to compulsorily conduct the final year exams by September 30.
