Taking notice of concerns raised by students of some universities that their exams should be conducted online, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Wednesday allowed universities to conduct exams, either on-campus or online based on their capacity.
“HEC advises universities to conduct exams based on their capacity and need for fair assessment,” reads the statement issued by HEC.
The decision was taken in a meeting attended by vice-chancellors of all the provinces and regions. The meeting reviewed apprehensions of students carefully keeping in view the difficulties brought about by the pandemic and opening of universities from February 01, 2021.
“HEC already allowed universities to use their discretion to conduct exams, either on-campus or online as long as the chosen mode provides a fair assessment of students’ performance,” the statement added.
“The universities should take stock of their “exam readiness”, i.e., technological readiness, managerial capacity, and the announced policy, and choose the best possible mode of assessment,” it further added.
The HEC in a press release said that online exams “either can be used if the universities administer ‘Open Book Exams’ or establish an invigilation system in a supervised environment”.
The statement further reads that universities will also have to use Turnitin to check the similarity index with Web and the answers of other students. Further, a viva/oral exam may be integrated into the assessment where necessary.
“On-campus exams can be used only under strict compliance with all Covid-19 health and safety protocols. Universities may also have to organize make-up classes for two weeks in case students consider the course coverage to be deficient,” according to a statement.
The HEC said that all students in a single course will be examined in the same mode i.e., either on-line or on-campus.
“Since March 2020, HEC has been continuously monitoring the pandemic situation and coordinated with the universities to minimize academic disruption and continue online education with quality safeguards,” read the press release.
Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood expressed happiness over HEC’s decision.
“This paves the way for them to devise the right procedures quickly to do so. Education standards must be kept up. Work hard students and wish you the best,” the minister wrote on Twitter.
The decision from the HEC came after days-long protests by students in several cities, especially in Lahore where they turned violent earlier this week.
Students had been protesting for a week now say they attended online classes throughout the last year due to the pandemic and wanted to be examined under virtual conditions also.
They also claim universities had not completed the syllabi of different courses but now the institute’s administrations were pressing for exams.
The protesting students also called for a reduction in tuition fees since they did not attend classes in person and said that boarding schools should not be charging for lodging or meals.
Earlier on Wednesday, Shafqat announced that the country will adopt the Single National Curriculum (SNC) from the next academic year, which will begin from August 2021.
The announcement was made through the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, wherein the ministry stated that it has developed the SNC with consultation from the relevant stakeholders for grades pre-1 to 5 and that this “shall be followed by all public and private schools across the country from next academic year”.
According to the ministry, under the directives from the federal minister for education, the new year “would start now in August 2021 due to extension in examination dates to be held in May/June and also prolonged school closures in the academic year of 2020”.
Furthermore, the ministry said that a letter was sent to all provincial and area governments regarding the Textbook Policy under the unified curriculum.
It stated that publishers are “allowed to develop these textbooks aligned with SLOs prescribed by SNC” and that they will require a no-objection certificate (NOC) by the provincial textbook boards so that they may “check any inclusion of anti-Pakistan, anti-religion, and any other hate material”.
Meanwhile, the textbook boards have been advised to “exercise due diligence to ensure that private publishers are producing textbooks in line with the objectives and contents of SNC”.
