Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's announcement of cancellation of final-year exams has taken another political turn. A letter written by Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to the CM on Tuesday describes the latter's announcement as ‘unprecedented’ and made ‘without any profound thinking on the legal repercussions’. Koshyari followed that with a tweet: "Cancellation of exams would jeopardise the future of students."
While the Shiv Sena has been applauding the recent decision of the CM to cancel final-year exams, the governor's letter expresses surprise upon learning from media reports that Thackeray had declared ‘No examinations shall be conducted this year’.
Koshyari, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said this decision had been made even as he had been awaiting a response to his earlier letter to the CM. Asserting that the governor, as the chancellor of universities in the state, has the final authority on all university matters as per the provisions of Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, the decision to hold exams for final-year students ‘shall be taken in consonance with the provisions of the Act’.
Further, even though the committee of Vice Chancellors (VCs), set up by the state's higher and technical education minister to analyse the situation and explore options to conduct examinations, had given its report to the secretary of the higher and technical education department on May 6, 2020, the report had yet to be presented to him. Koshyari pointed out that during his video conference with the VCs of state universities, all stakeholders had communicated their prepararedness for conducting examinations.
The governor said he had earlier mentioned that the chancelllor’s office would give further directions after accepting the recommendations of the committee partially or fully, once he had received the report.
Now, the governor has written in his letter, “The arbitrary decision has violated the basic principle that to obtain an identical degree, there cannot be two sets of criteria, one who has given examination and for the other who has obtained marks on average. The examinations cannot be made optional.”
Pointing out that the students of medicine, architecture, law and other programmes need to register themselves with their respective professional bodies or councils after completion of a professional course in order to get their licence to practise, the governor said these bodies may not be able to register students without them being evaluated on established parameters.
Earlier, on May 22, the governor had written a letter to the CM stating, "It would not be ethical or appropriate to award degrees to final-year students without conducting their examinations."
Following several discussions, on May 30, CM Uddhav Thackeray had announced, "Final-year exams will not be conducted due to the coronavirus situation and students will be given average marks of the aggregate scores of previous semesters. Students who are not satisfied with their marks will be given the option to appear for exams later, whenever possible, depending on the situation."
In addition, the governor noted, the Ministry of Home Affairs had given its approval and issued guidelines to conduct examinations to various state boards and that CBSE and ICSE boards were in the process of conducting exams in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic situation. He said, "If other boards can conduct examinations for younger children, then the universities can conduct their examinations as well."
The University Grants Commission (UGC) and other central authorities are of the view that the final-year examination may not be dispensed with and the state government should abide by the UGC guidelines along with the provisions of the Maharashtra Universities Act, 2016.
