The Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) on Tuesday approved online MCQ (multiple choice questions) examinations for first-year to final-year students. This was decided in a special Board of Examinations (BoE) meeting today, reported the Indian Express.
As per the report, exams for first-year students are expected to begin from March 30 and exams for second and third-year degree students are expected to start from March 20.
Mahesh Kakade, director, examinations and evaluations, conveyed the decision taken at the BoE meeting. He said that the first and second-year students will give 50-mark online MCQ-based exams, which would be of one-hour duration for each subject.
However, the final-year students will give a 50 marks MCQ paper and a 20-mark descriptive, long-answer format exam. "The total exam duration would be 1.5 hours. The final year students are already being assessed internally for 30 marks. As far as the online exam for 70 marks of MCQ and the long-form answer goes, it would require individual pass marks for both,” he said.
There were demands on social media and otherwise to conduct the exams online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the Minister for Higher and Technical Education Uday Samant had also said universities can conduct exams online as well as offline as per the COVID-19-related situation in their respective areas.
Regular exams for SPPU students were cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown.
