From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Jul 10: In a major decision to protect the lives and safety of students on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State Government has decided to promotion of all intermediate semester students of degree and post-graduation courses and also diploma courses without examinations for the academic year 2019-20.
However, examinations for all final semester students will be held by September 2020.
The decisions taken by the State Government in accordance with University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, have been approved by the State Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, who is also the Chancellor of all the Universities in Karnataka.
Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister (DCM) Dr C N Ashwathanarayan, who is the minisrer for Higher Education, announced that the decisions were taken after consulting educationalists and University Vice Chancellors taking into consideration the well-being, safety and future of students.
UGC guidelines have also been duly taken into account, he said making it clear that the decisions will be limited to the academic year 2019-20 only.
“Covid19 has disrupted the education system as classes could not be held on time. Online learning introduced during the lockdown has received good responses and the State Government promptly tried its best to reach the last person in the chain.
Amid these, the Government mulled on conducting offline classes and examinations too, but owing to increase in the viral spread those thoughts have been dropped and it has been decided to pass and promote all intermediate semester students,’’ the Deputy Chief Minister said.
He explained that the Universities have been intimated to conduct examinations for all the final year/semester students.
“Intermediate semester students will be assessed based on a comprehensive evaluation scheme with internal assessment marks and previous year’s/semester’s marks considered in a 50:50 ratio. For students in their first semester/year, the evaluation will be completely based on internal assessment marks”, Dr Ashwath Narayan said.
“If the students wish to better their scores, provisions will be made for them to face examinations during the next semester and the students who fail to succeed in the comprehensive evaluation process shall face examinations for respective subjects during the next semester. Backlog subjects will be allowed to carry over as well,’’ he clarified.
Examinations for final semester students
“Final semester exams will be conducted with due consideration given to students’ academic evaluation and their future lives. Academic evaluation forms the core of the higher education system and hence academic performance of students needs to be considered. Companies too will base their assessments on an individual student’s academic excellence and grades he/she secured. Thus, it would be pushing the students to danger in the future if examinations were not to be conducted now. In this regard, all universities have been informed to prepare themselves and make suitable arrangements for the conduct of final semester examinations”, he said.
Online classes to begin from Sept 1
“Online classes for the academic year 2020-21 will begin from September 1 and offline classes from October 1. All universities and affiliated colleges have been directed to make suitable arrangements in that regard,’’ he added.
Helpline
A helpline number has been set up to address the concerns of the students - 080-22341394.