Ramakanta Biswas

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Skill Development and Technical Education department on Friday announced to conduct the eighth semester examination of all engineering colleges across the State through online mode between the first and second week of July.

Informing about decision, Skill Development and Technical Education Minister Premananda Nayak said those students who will not appear for online examination can write the examination through offline mode after opening of their institutes.

Apart from examination centres in all districts across the State, centres will be set up outside the State for convenience of students. “We are holding discussion with other states to set up centres there for the ease of students. Candidates will have the option to choose their centres,” the minister said.

According to sources, the eighth semester examination of Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) will be held in the first week of July.

Ansuman Kumar Sahoo, former BPUT Student Union president, said “The higher education department yesterday issued a notification for cancellation of all examinations. However, no such notification was issued by the technical education department. Therefore, we came to meet the minister and submitted a memorandum today.”

“The minister said the examination will be conducted between first and second week of July. Though we welcome the decision, there is concern about the health of the students in the wake of Covid-19,” he added.

It may be noted that announcement made by various universities to hold end-semester UG, PG examinations in the State drew flak from various quarters. Students protested the move saying that the development might pose risk to students if examinations are conducted at a time when there is a rise in Coronavirus cases in the State and outside.

Following the developments, the Odisha government on Thursday cancelled all pending final semester and final year exams of various Under Graduate and Post Graduate courses. The government pointed out that instead all Universities and Autonomous colleges will follow evaluation methodology recommended by UGC for evaluation or final/final semester examination and results should be published by the end of August.

(Edited by Suryakant Jena)

https://youtu.be/bQ_YQ_J8wXk

 

scrollToTop