The Bombay High Court has called for all universities across the state to follow a uniform exam pattern. The bench of Justices, Milind Jadhav, and Abhay Ahuja on Monday, (May 30) was hearing public interest litigation (PIL) filed by undergraduate students asking for uniformity in exam patterns and the timely declaration of results.

The Court has asked the petitioners to file a fresh representation with the state asking for relief while directing the government to convene a meeting with the universities to resolve the matter. The government has been asked to finalise a common exam pattern and announce the same on June 1. 

Universities across Maharashtra announced varying exam patterns according to their convenience. While most universities preferred to conduct offline exams, some adopted the online-only exam pattern. Yet others, like Mumbai University, announced exams in a hybrid mode depending on the course. 

Further, there are variations even in the offline exams pattern. While some universities have asked students to write descriptive answers, others have announced multiple-choice questions (MCQ) only.

Students say having to write exams in different modes is unjust and unfair to them since offline and online exams aren’t comparable. They believe their peers writing online exams will have an edge over those writing descriptive answers in offline exams.

“Students who were earlier demanding that all degree college exams be held in online mode only are now asking for a common mode of exams for all. Ideally, all physical exams should follow the MCQ format instead of descriptive answers. This will ensure that the results too are announced quickly. With exams that were to be held in March being delayed until now (June), the delay in the results will lead to students aspiring to study abroad missing their deadlines,” says Anubha Srivastava Sahai, advocate for the petitioners.

Earlier in a meeting held with Maharashtra’s technical and higher education minister, Uday Samant (on April 25), the vice-chancellors of 13 state universities unanimously decided to conduct exams in the pen-and-paper mode. However, this led to further confusion about the exam pattern amongst students, especially since some colleges had already announced their exam schedules much earlier.  

Most academicians are of the view that holding offline exams will help students get in sync with the regular academic process at the earliest. On April 26, the minister reiterated that the decision to hold physical exams would be uniform across all universities in the state while adding that students clearing offline exams would be in an advantageous position while seeking employment since industries will give weightage to students with offline exam experience.

Universities have been asked to provide question banks to aid students for the exams scheduled between June1-15. Students are also to be given an additional 15 minutes to complete their papers since they would be writing offline papers after a gap of two years.  

Students who have already appeared for descriptive papers in the offline mode are hoping to get some relief in terms of grace marks etc.

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