Bhubaneswar: Higher Education Minister Arun Sahoo announced Thursday the cancellation of final semester examinations of UG and PG students. The decision was taken after a video conference meeting with vice-chancellors of various universities in Odisha.
The minister directed the universities and autonomous colleges give the students average marks on basis of the marks obtained by them in previous semesters and internal marks as per the UGC guidelines and to publish the results by August end.
During the meeting, the minister reviewed the COVID-19 situation in the state and decided that the situation was not conducive for holding examinations. Sahoo announced that if any final semester student thinks that s/he can get more marks than the average mark in the final semester, they can appear for examination in November 2020. The universities will publish revised results for these students in December.
For students who have back papers in the final semester, the universities and autonomous colleges will conduct separate examinations whose date and list will be prepared by authorities considering the prevalent COVID-19 situation.
Earlier the Ramadevi University and Utkal University had postponed the exams of sixth semester till the second week of July following widespread protests from the students. Earlier, the sixth semester examinations were scheduled to commence from June 25.
In previous meetings, Sahoo had said that the state government has decided to ask Plus III and PG students in the state to cover 25 per cent of the syllabus in self-study mode amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
The Plus III second semester, IV semester examinations and PG second semester examinations were also cancelled due to the COVID-19 situation and the students were promoted after evaluation by the universities.