A SURVEY OF MAIN STAKE-HOLDERS' OPINION ABOUT CONDUCTING EXAMINATIONS DURING CORONA PANDEMIC WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MAHARASHTRA

The examination is expected to evaluate student's ability of learning, is a measure of analysing the knowledge of students and measures how much they have learnt, is expected to improve student-outcomes, forms the basis of further admissions of students and selection for employment and is a measure of judging teacher effectiveness. Universities the world over conduct examinations for these reasons. Never in the history, have Indian universities faced situations where it is extremely difficult to conduct examinations like the present times emerging due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Various stakeholders of the system of higher education are confused or worried about whether examinations will take place and if so, what will be its format or when it will be conducted. Such a situation led to the researchers undertaking an exploratory survey on 1061 undergraduate and post-graduate students to find out the opinions of students regarding whether examinations need to be conducted. The study found that about 72.67% of the students do not want final year/semester examinations due to (a) fear of getting exposed to Corona virus if students go out to give examination, (b) fear of travelling to examination center and (c) confusion over changing decisions about taking final year/semester examinations. If at all, examinations have to be conducted, then it should be in the month of October 2020. The students’ opinion regarding examinations is likely to be due their overall anxiety (fear of the unknown) which can further affect students’ other part of life such as social, personal and professional too.