Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Jun 27: The Rajiv Gandhi University Students’ Union (RGUSU) has appealed to the RGU authority and the state government to promote the terminal semester or final-year students alongside the students of intermediate semesters/year.
In a press briefing on Saturday, the RGUSU said that “several students have left for their respective villages and towns, and it has become extremely difficult for them to keep pace with the flow of online teaching-learning methods due to the paucity of internet connection and IT infrastructure in the state for conducting online examinations.”
With increasing cases of Covid-19 in Arunachal and nearby states, the union said that “students coming from different states or districts
may have to be kept under strict supervision or in quarantine centres, and students are not in a position to risk their lives for the sake of appearing in examinations.”
The union also suggested awarding students with backlog in the 5th semester of undergraduate courses and the 3rd semester of postgraduate courses 50 percent weightage from their immediate semesters.
It also suggested that students be given the provision of improving their marks in a chosen paper in the next academic session, or by conducting special exams once the situation gets normal.
The RGUSU also opposed the decision taken during the 28th meeting of the academic council (special) on 24 June to discard the entrance test of the university and instead shortlist or take into the university those students who secured highest or best marks in their respective colleges for the 2020-2021 session.
“A student’s true potentiality cannot be judged or determined by his/her marks,” RGUSU president Dopum Sonam said, and demanded that the university continue to practice the entrance examination mode when normalcy returns and/or conduct them through online mode as the entrance tests are objective in nature.
A letter in this regard has also been submitted to the RGU vice chancellor.
While the RGU is yet to issue an official notification, on 24 June, the university had held its academic council meet, during which decisions were made on the conduct of examinations and other academic matters.
During the meeting, the house held discussions on promoting students of intermediate semesters without any examination, and to grade them based on 50:25:25 ratios.
As per discussions, students would be awarded 50 percent weightage on the basis of the last semester examination marks. Twenty-five percent weightage shall be drawn from the internal sessional marks, and rest of the 25 percent weightage shall be calculated from the assignment marks.
In case a student has backlog papers in the previous semester, the weightage of 50 percent shall be considered from the 1st semester average marks.
The RGU had also proposed conducting examination for all students of terminal semesters/years (including distance education and LLB and BA-LLB students) while reducing the time from three hours to two hours, without compromising the quality of the examinations in the conventional mode (physical appearance/writing), maintaining the norms of social distancing.
The university proposed conducting the examinations in the month of August/ September, 2020.
The house also deliberated the matter of new admission to UG, PG, MPhil and PhD as the online admission process is not possible to be introduced for admissions in the forthcoming academic session (2020-21), considering the remoteness and poor connectivity of the region.
As per the tentative academic calendar issued by RGU on 14 May, classes are scheduled to begin for students from 29 June. However, there has been no official communication on any changes to the tentative academic calendar as well.
