Maha likely to have separate exam board for HE

With an intention of awarding the universities a breather, the Maharashtra state government is thinking on the lines of forming separate examination boards for courses like management studies and engineering. While the proposal is still in the brainstorming phase, it is already being applauded by educationists, varsities and teachers as well.

The state government intends to separate the examination conducting responsibility of all varsities running courses under the ambit of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Seeking suggestions from various stake holders, the state government is busy gathering feedback on their plan to setup an independent state level examination board, particularly for higher education courses. The board will solely be dealing with the responsibility of conducting examinations.

Examinations reportedly take away a chunk of time and effort of the varsity management, as the number of affiliated colleges and students has gone up tremendously over the years. There are over 60, 000 students under the Pune varsity alone. The universities stand burdened, with an un-proportionate rise in staff; complaints of paper leakage, checking discrepancies, unavailability of paper checking staff etc, further worsening the situation. The proposal is thus, being welcomed with open arms.

Not only is the move expected to ease the burden on the varsities, according to Nandkumar Nikam, president of state federation of principals, who was addressing a seminar on examination reforms on higher education arranged by the Vidyapeeth Vikas Manch, said;

“If the exams part is separated, varsities could give more time to academics.”

Applauding the suggestion, Nikam even suggested extending this kind of move to all higher education courses and freeing the universities off the examination conducting responsibility completely. The response was echoed by the Central Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav as well. Jadhav was the chief guest at the same function.