Bhubaneswar: Odisha Higher Education Minister Arun Sahoo Thursday wrote to Union Human Resource Development Ministry (MHRD) seeking cancellation of UG and PG final semester examinations.
Sahoo in his letter said that the state government and state public universities are in a dilemma regarding the conduct of final PG and UG final semester examinations after receiving no reply to his previous letter sent to MHRD in this context.
“The students and parents have become very anxious and restless due to such uncertainty and contacting us in large number over telephone as to whether they should start preparing for examination,” he said.
“The COVID-19 situation has worsened in the last 15 days since I wrote July 9, 2020. The situation is most likely to aggravate further in the coming months. Therefore I request you once again to kindly reconsider the matter and allow the state public universities of Odisha to accept the alternative guidelines issued by the state government June 18, 2020 and not conduct exam in September,” Sahoo added.
Meanwhile, the MHRD had approached the universities to see if examinations can be conducted. The response received from 818 Universities (121 deemed universities, 291 private universities, 51 central universities and 355 state universities) will be taken into consideration before reaching a conclusion, a source said.
Out of the 818 universities, 603 universities have either conducted the examinations or are planning to conduct. Out of them, 209 have already conducted examinations (online/ offline); 394 are planning to conduct examinations (online/ offline/ blended mode) in August and September.