UOH and MANUU Students Protest Against UGC Exam Guidelines

Students of the University of Hyderabad (UOH) and Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) have joined the protest against the recently-issued guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

According to the guidelines issued by the UGC, all colleges and universities must hold the final year or semester examinations by the end of September. It also said that students who miss the examination in September can take a special examination “as and when feasible.”

The students of the University of Hyderabad labelled the UGC guidelines as “anti-student”. UOH and MANUU students have decided to take part in a mass Twitter protest, mailing to the MHRD, taking part in a signature campaign, and so on in the next three days.

The president of the UOH students’ union has said that students should be promoted on the basis of performance in the previous semesters, adding that those who wish to improve their grades should be given an option to take the examination later.

The president argued that as students are already under duress due to the pandemic, setting a deadline for the examination will only aggravate matters.

The Telangana unit of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has written an open letter to the HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal raising concerns over the guidelines.

In the letter, the SFI said that suggesting an online or blended method of examination was discriminatory in nature as it gave an advantage to those students with access to infrastructure, excluding the marginalized and the vulnerable population who have been most affected by the pandemic.

The members of the Association for Strengthening of Private Initiative in Rural Education (ASPIRE) also wrote to the Registrar of Osmania University asking for an alternative method of assessing students.

“Arrive at a cumulative grade point average for graduating students based on performance in the previous five semesters, as also the internal marks already awarded in the final semester,” said the president of ASPIRE.

He added, “Validate the said CGPA by conducting a comprehensive graduate eligibility test for just 200 marks in a single sitting.”