Xavier’s Univ among first to follow UGC exam diktat

Xavier’s Univ among first to follow UGC exam diktat

Scraps Plan To Publish Result On July 10

Somdatta.Basu@timesgroup.com

Kolkata:

St Xavier’s University becomes one of the first educational institutions in Bengal to follow UGC diktat and prepare to take tests for terminal-semester students by the end of September. This, when the university was ready to publish its terminal semester and MBA results on July 10. It will now suspend the earlier assessments and conduct a 50-mark online test for the end semester.

With hundreds of students already bagging jobs and scheduled to join the companies by this month, St Xavier’s University vice-chancellor Fr Felix Raj has written to the employers, seeking extension to submit the final semester marksheets, even for MBA graduates. Several students are also looking to join foreign universities, where they have to submit their final semester transcripts within a deadline.

“We had followed the UGC advisory, which was brought out in April, advising the universities to allocate 50% weightage to previous semesters and another 50% to continuous assessments. We had prepared our own formula, in which 50% marks were assigned to the previous semester, 25% on internal assessment and for the remaining 25%, we conducted exams on the virtual platform, based on online classes held during the lockdown,” said Fr Felix Raj. The evaluation was completed by June 30 and the marks were submitted to the controller of examinations. The university was ready with the results.

But UGC’s Monday notification left little scope for universities to allot marks to previous semesters, as was prescribed earlier. “We will now have to scrap the 50% weightage to marks from previous semesters and take online exams on 50 marks in each subject. We had conducted 25-mark online tests earlier. So, together it will be 75 marks in online exams and 25 on internal assessments,” said the Xavier’s University VC. “The new proposal will be placed before the executive council, the highest administrative decision-making body on Thursday.”

“The new circular says universities have to take exams for all terminal-semester candidates in offline, blended or online mode. Based on the infrastructure of the institutions, they can choose their mode,” said a senior higher education department official. He added though most state universities still stuck to the state-prescribed 80-20 evaluation formula, it was always better to follow UGC guidelines to have a parity among universities across India.

About publishing results, Fr Felix Raj said, “We will make fresh announcements. Now, we can only conduct online exams in August since in July, multiple areas in Bengal will be under lockdown. We had thought publication of results would have helped students focus ahead.”

Students fear the exams might be pushed back even further if lockdown continues. Some MBA students are apprehensive that their new employers might not entertain their request to extended the deadline to submit final marksheets. The university has written to all employers, informing them about the delay in publishing results and requesting them to either defer the joining dates or allow students to submit the final semester transcript later.

The university has 600 terminal-semester students in UG and PC together. The MBA course has another 120 students in the final semester.

St Xavier’s University will hold a 50-mark online test