Gujarat University exams rescheduled to May 7, 8

Gujarat University (GU) exams which were slated to start from May 3 have been rescheduled due to administrative reasons and will now begin from May 7 and May 8 respectively.

GU officials said that as per the revised schedule, exams of BA first semester (regular, repeater and external), BCom first semester (regular, repeater and external), BSc first semester (regular and repeater), BBA first semester (regular, repeater and external), BCA first semester (regular, repeater and external) and BSc first year (regular) will begin from May 7.

The number of ATKT students is huge and the sitting arrangements caused some problems. This resulted in the exams being pushed back by four days. "Owing to space crunch and lack of adequate staff - since summer vacations are on - we've decided to take the exam in two parts," said a GU official.

From May 8, MA first semester (regular, repeater and external), MCom first semester (regular, repeater and external), MA semester three (regular and repeater), MCom (regular and repeater) and MSC semester five (regular and repeater) exams will begin. tnn

In the exams beginning from May 7, no less than 60,000 students are expected to appear and another 45,000 students will appear for the exams from May 8.

However, some students were less than pleased by this development. "The GU authorities should take proper care before announcing the exam dates. As per the earlier schedule, the exams would have ended by May 10 and many of us would have drawn up vacation plans and others who are employed would also have applied for leave. Now, all these have to be reorganized in a hurry," said an MCom student.

CBSE exams from March 1

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) final exams for classes X and XII will start from March 1. The first exam for Class X will be painting and for Class XII it will be English.

CBSE regional officer K K Choudhury said, "The preparation for the examinations has already started. The question papers have already been dispatched from Delhi to the different centres. There are around 285 centres all over the northeast, and around 753 schools in the northeast from which approximately 85,000 candidates of classes X and XII would be appearing for the exams."

He added that although at the senior secondary level, that is, Class XII, students can opt for either board-conducted school-conducted examination, it is seen that in the northeast, students prefer the exam conducted by the board.

The regional officer also said that this year, CBSE has introduced the board's international curriculum in Indian schools and this has been notified to schools in the northeast as well.

"The CBSE international curriculum would be more project-based and the schools would now offer both the courses for students to choose from. The CBSE international curriculum would vary across regions as we have included region-specific issues and important historical events in the social science subject," Choudhury said.

That international curriculum needs to be handled differently altogether, as it is quite unlike the regular course, but it would surely benefit the students, he said.

The CBSE curriculum is also stressing more on vocational subjects, and hospitality and tourism are the latest subjects that have been introduced in the curriculum. "Vocational subjects are the need of the hour and the idea is to provide the students the option of studying subjects that would help them professionally after the board finals," the CBSE regional officer said.