Students, teachers welcome cancellation of semester exams

Students, teachers welcome cancellation of semester exams

Jul 24, 2020, 04.06 AM IST

Coimbatore: The state government has done the right thing by calling off the semester exams, student and teacher associations in the city said.

The government had on Thursday called off exams for the first and second year students of UG arts and science courses, and polytechnic courses, first, second and third year exams for UG engineering courses, first year PG arts and engineering courses and first and second year MCA courses.

Representatives of the Students Federation of India (SFI), who had earlier staged protests demanding cancellation of exams, said there could have been no other way but to call off the exams. SFI district secretary Dhinesh Raja said it wouldn’t have been possible to gather students to conduct exams at this juncture. “Online exams would not have been possible with a huge population of rural students having no access to network or devices,” he said.

Teachers’ association representatives agreed. President of the Tamil Nadu Government Collegiate Teachers’ Association (TNGCTA) T Veeramani said for every exam, around 600 students would appear, and they would have to sit for three hours, which would have posed serious risk. “Calling off the semester exams was the right move,” he said.

Students and teachers body representatives said they expect the state to call off semester exams for the final year also, as students have to decide on their future. “The state can follow the same procedure as that for other years and award grades for final years. It will allow final year students to decide on taking up higher studies or choose a career,” said Veeramani.

If exams were conducted for final years, it would take another two months for declaring results and even longer for re-valuation, said Dhinesh. “This would mean some final year students stand to lose an entire year. So, the state should call off exams for final years as well. If final year exams are also called off, students would decide quickly on pursuing PG courses such as M.Sc, MBA or B.L,” he said.