In a relief to students, the final time-table for pending university, degree college and higher education examinations will be declared in the next two days, announced Uday Samant, higher and technical education minister of Maharashtra, on Tuesday.
The Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET) for entry to technical, medical, and dental courses will be conducted mostly between July 20 to 30, 2020.
In a video conference with Vice Chancellors (VC) of state universities and education officers on Tuesday, Samant tweeted, "There will be no academic loss to a single student. We have set up committees to discuss and prepare the final schedule of all pending examinations. We will declare the final exam dates in the next two days after a thorough discussion with the Chief Minister (CM) of Maharashtra."
Following the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, all pending exams will be conducted starting from July 1. An education officer of the University of Mumbai (MU) said, "We are trying to follow the academic schedule and exam dates suggested by the UGC. Exams will be conducted in July, followed by result declaration in August and commencement of new academic year in September."
Students pursuing Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programmes are concerned if their viva, a verbal test to defend final thesis in front of a panel of examiners, will be conducted via video conference.
Rakshanda Pandey, a PhD student, said, "Our viva test is the final hurdle to achieve the PhD degree. But we do not know if we will have to appear for this test via video conferencing."
Competitive exams such as the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to engineering, MBBS and BDS courses respectively will be conducted in July.
In a video conference with students, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) said, "JEE-Main exam will be held on July 18, 20, 21, 22 and 23. The NEET exam will be held on July 26. The dates for JEE Advance will be announced soon."