Final year exams compulsory: Yuva Sena files online petition, asks HRD Ministry to roll back decision

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A day after the Centre told UGC that final year university exams are to be conducted compulsorily in online/offline modes, Yuva Sena Secretary Varun Sardesai started a petition to cancel the exams.

The leader of Yuva Sena, which is the youth wing of the Shiv Sena, wrote to Union Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal, demanding a roll back of the decision to conduct exams for final year university students.

The online petition was commissioned on change.org, and had nearly 4,800 signatories at the time of filing this story.

The move had come as the number of cases across India breached the 7-lakh mark, and India surpassed Russia to become the third worst-hit nation from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his letter to the HRD Minister, Sardesai said that UGC (University Grants Commission) had earlier allowed the universities to take the decision of conducting the exams based on the situation in their vicinity and prioritising health and safety of students. In view of this order, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had cancelled final year exams and directed varsities to evaluate students based on their previous semesters and internal marks.

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Sardesai said that the decision was “widely accepted by students and the Education fraternity at large” and that other states also followed suit.

However, the Centre’s decision to compulsorily conduct exams in the month of September “has caused confusion, panic and immense stress amongst students,” the Yuva Sena leader claimed.

Listing out concerns such as poor infrastructure in rural areas for conduction online exams; the risk of community transmission with offline exams; loss of opportunities for those who have been placed; Sardesai urged the HRD Ministry to reconsider their decision of conducting final year exams compulsorily.