Gujarat: No mass promotion for college, university students

Gujarat state has ruled out the alternative for colleges and universities to mass promote the students. However, the state government gave permission to promote school students without holding examinations due to the nationwide lockdown to evade COVID-19 spread. Rather in the case of no examinations, it is considering a formula to assess students of state universities and its affiliated colleges where it would consider a student’s performance in previous semesters, for instance, rated on an average of previous assessments. According to Anju Sharma, principal secretary education, the mass promotion was totally ruled out. It was legally challenged previously in the Supreme Court when Gujarat University had issued mass promotion.

Moreover, in such a case, the question of whether all the students would be promoted also ascends. At the state government level, this is also being worked out. Lately, the student organisations such as Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had asked for mass promotion of students of colleges and universities. At the same time, the education department is looking for a possibility of reviving the ‘carry forward policy’ for colleges and universities, the policy that was in place till two years back. As a part of this, a student was promoted in all previous semesters even if the exams were not passed till the last semester. So, the student had to clear all his pending exams in the last semester where he would be detained.

As a part of the state government’s reforms for higher education, especially the examination reforms, this policy was massively used by all the major state-run universities. It was abolished in a phased manner in 2018. However, these options are being considered for first and second-year undergraduate students and first-year postgraduate students, barring all the final-year students.

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