Maharashtra govt cancels final exams for professional, non-professional courses in wake of COVID-19

The Maharashtra government has decided not to conduct final year or semester exams of professional and non-professional courses due to present COVID-19 situation.

The degrees to students will be awarded based on the formula decided by universities. 

"Maharashtra government decided not to conduct the final year/final semester exam of non-professional/professional courses as the present atmosphere is not yet conducive to conduct any exam or classes. Also decided to award degrees based on formula decided by universities," the CMO Maharashtra said in a statement on Friday. 

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to instruct national level apex authorities like All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Council of Architecture (CoA), Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), Bar Council of India (BCI), National Council of Teachers Education (NCTE) and National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology to endorse state government`s decision regarding professional courses and issue guidelines to universities.

The Maharashtra government's decision to cancel all exams comes after a UGC panel recommended that all university exams be scrapped as the situation was not conducive enough to conduct the test. 

On Thursday, the Central government also submitted before the Supreme Court that the remaining class 10 and 12 CBSE exams, which were earlier rescheduled to be held between July 1 to July 15 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been cancelled.