By Manjima Dhakal
Kathmandu, Nov. 30: Major universities of the country are preparing to conduct their halted examinations in physical presence from mid-December after a recent Cabinet meeting decided to allow academic institutions and universities to conduct the exams from now.
The oldest university, Tribhuvan University (TU), has announced that it would conduct the final examinations from December 13. The TU has been all set to conduct examinations of the fourth year Bachelor of Science, Management and Education from December 13, Pushpa Raj Joshi, examination controller of the TU, said.
The Office of the Controller of the Examination (OCE) of TU is making preparations to conduct the examinations as done by the National Examination Board (NEB). However, the examinations of TU will not be conducted from home centres as in case of Grade XII, Joshi said.
Although the OCE, TU itself is going to conduct the examinations of annual system, it has already directed the concerned dean offices and faculties to conduct the semester system examinations under their own management. Joshi said the dean offices and faculties had also decided to conduct the examinations from January.
Therefore, all halted examinations of TU will be conducted now, he added. According to him, the TU is very careful about conducting examinations with safely by maintaining proper social distancing and adhering to other health protocols.
Many examinations of the TU have been pending for over eight months while the country fell under lockdown when the examinations were in progress.
Meanwhile, Purbanchan University (PU), which recently completed time-bound home examinations of many odd semesters, also decided to conduct other examinations in physical presence of the examinees. Dr. Surya Prasad Sangraula, examination controller of PU, said though they successfully conducted time-bound home examinations earlier now they had decided to conduct other examinations in physical presence of the examinees. The PU decided that because other universities and NEB are adopting the same method after the government allowed for physical presence examinations, Sangraula said.
According to Sangraula, PU has decided to set home centre for examinees. The examinations will be held from December 13, Sangraula informed.
Likewise, Mid-Western University has completed its first-phase examinations from October 3 to October 22 and started second-phase examinations from Sunday. It has been conducting odd semester examinations in time-bound home examination model, Aanada Subedi, controller of the Mid-western University, said.
According to Subedi, students of Lumbini and Karnali province, mainly from Mugu, Kalikot, Dailekh, Rukum, Rolpa districts, are appearing the time-bound home examinations.
In the time-bound home exams, the question papers are sent to the respective colleges by email half an hour before the examination is to begin. The colleges then send the question papers to the examinees' email before the scheduled time of the examination. After the examinees write the answers within given time limit, they send the picture or scanned copy of the answer sheet. An extra hour is allocated to send the answer sheets.
The university is not yet decided about other even semester examinations. Subedi said remaining examinations will be held in physical presence of examinees because the government allowed conducting the examinations in physical presence.
Those universities have also managed separate examinations hall for corona-infected students.