COVID-19: UGC Likely To Advise Colleges, Varsities To Scrap All Exams

NEW DELHI: In view of the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University Grants Commission (UGC) may tilt in favour of cancelling final year and semester examinations of colleges and universities in the country. Highly placed sources in the Ministry of Human Resource Development see this prospect on the horizon in view of the rapid rise in the number of daily cases of COVID-19 across the country. Consequently, the UGC may advise all the colleges and universities to cancel their final year examinations besides semester examinations.

The forced shift in plans may not stop at that. The UGC may also recommend more delays in the academic calendar, pushing the next session to October.

The latest buzz on the likelihood of the UGC recommending cancellation of examinations started with a tweet by Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Wednesday. The Union minister tweeted that he had advised the UGC to revisit its earlier guidelines on these issues. “The foundation for revisited guidelines shall be health and safety of students, teachers and staff,” the tweet said.

Interestingly, this comes a day before the Supreme Court hearing on the question of cancellation of Class 12 and 10 examinations of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) keeing in view the spread of COVID-19. In their response, the HRD ministry and the CBSE told the apex court that a final decision on the issue would be communicated by Thursday. The Class 12 examinations are supposed to begin on July 1 as per earlier schedule.

A few weeks into the nationwide lockdown In April, a UGC panel, headed by Central University of Haryana Vice-Chancellor R.C. Kuhad, had recommended that final year examinations can be conducted in July. In the same breath, it also recommended that the intermediate semester students could be graded based on internal assessment or examinations wherever they could be held. The UGC’s guidelines, which were prepared based on the panel’s report, had then also recommended that the new academic year could begin on August 1 for the second and third year students, and September 1 for the first year students.

But the COVID-19 situation has witnessed a sea change since then. The rapid rise in the number of new coronavirus cases across the country has really pushed the UGC on to the backgoot. The ministry officials say the Kuhad panel has updated its suggestions keeping the rampant spread of the pandemic. Against this backdrop, the UGC is largely expected to consider the panel's revised recommendations to cancel the examinations and delay the calendar. Fresh guidelines to this effect are likely to be issued later this week.

But there are concerns on the alternate assessment methods to be adopted if the examinations are cancelled.

UGC regulates 945 universities across the country, including 412 State universities and 53 Central universities. All educational institutions remain closed since March 24 when the nationwide lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Most of the institutions have been forced to fall back on classes through online and distance education to do the balancing act between social distancing and the need to push ahead with the academic year without further interruptions.