Pune: Colleges in Maharashtra Will Not Re-Open Anytime Soon, said State Education Minister Uday Samant

Pune, October 6, 2020: Unless and until the threat of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is cleared, colleges in Maharashtra will not resume; the online education will continue till then, stated state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant. The minister was in Pune for a visit and held a meeting with Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), directors of higher and technical education and other officials on Tuesday.

“The COVID-19 situation in the state has still not stabilised, therefore, it will not be appropriate to call students back to college, so we cannot re-open colleges at present. Online education will continue and the portion completed through this mode will be considered in the curriculum,” said Samant.

Final year examination

The minister took a review of the university’s preparation for holding the online and offline final year examination. He informed the press that, a total of 2.50 lakh students will be taking the final year examination under SPPU, out of which 2 lakh students will sit for online examination and 50,000 students will be undertaking offline examination. “The university has ensured that there will be no technical problems during the examination,” he said.

Offline exams will be held at 113 centres across three districts Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik. “To conduct the examinations smoothly at all the centres in these three district, we will need co-operation and co-ordination of district collectors, local police administration and other officials. Therefore, this meeting has been called to communicate and discuss all the required measures to conduct the examination with proper measure,” said Samant while addressing the media present at the university.

SPPU will be conducting online and offline examination for final year students. To ensure that no student is left out from undertaking the final year examination, they will be given another chance, stated Samant.

Online examination will start from October 8. Since, the Disaster Management Act is imposed in the state, permission from the respective district collector is also required, so their representatives were present at the meeting today, stated the minister. “District administration and police officials will be cooperating with us. We have given orders to examination centres and their agencies to complete the sanitisation work at the centres. Examination redressal cells including university and administration officials have been set up for students in Pune, Nagar and Nashik,” said Samant.

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