The supreme court on Friday justified the UGC’s insistence on final examinations for undergraduate and postgraduate courses for award of degrees and said this was an important process to seek evidence of students knowledge and evaluate it. A bench of justice Ashok Bhushan, R.S. REDDY and M.R.SHAH said “final year semester examinations are important because the learning process is a dynamic interaction where the only way to figure out what students know is to seek evidence of their knowledge and to evaluate it. Performance in examination, especially final year terminal semester examination, are a reflection of competence of the students”.
“Terminal semester examinations also provide an apportunity to students to improve upon their overall score/marks which are very crucial for academic excellence and opportunities of employement . Final year semester examinations of undergraduate or postgraduate is an opportunity for the student to show his optimum calibre which paves his future career both in the academics and emplyement”,the bench added. Maharashtra govt, drawing support from the west Bengal and delhi had questioned the rationale behind ugc fixing a sept 30 deadline for completion of final examinations without taking account the covid-19 sistuation in different states. The bench said, “ugc had rightly fixed a date for completion of terminal semester examination to maintain uniformity in the academic calender”. The court said UGC dixed a uniform deadline as students, who look forward to admissions in higher courses or take employment requires dinal degree for their career prospects and for this, there has to be uniformality in dates by which final examinations are over.