College final year exams to be held, if not in July then later: HRD Minister

May 28: The Union Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishanak went live on Facebook to interact with heads of various Higher Education Institutes of the country. He interacted LIVE with 45,000 higher education institutions attended by over 1000 heads, teachers, chancellors, etc. of various universities.

In the webinar, the HRD Minister said that the exam for students in the final year or semester will take place in July, as decided by UGC. “Final exam to honge hi (will definitely take place),” said the minister. For final year students, the minister said, “If the situation does not improve by July then, new dates or modes of conducting exams can be thought of, but the exam will take place for final year students.”

The HRD Minister, however, clarified that this was just for the final year college students and not first and second year students. For intermediate semesters, in case the COVID-19 situation is still not under control by July, then the first-year students can be promoted based on internal assessment or on the basis of their previous academic records . Similarly, the intermediate year or semester students can be promoted by giving 50 per cent weightage to internal assessment and 50 per cent to previous academic performance.

“Institutes across the nation are being converted into isolation/ quarantine centers. We thank these institutions for coming forward to join us in the fight against coronavirus”, the Ministry wrote in a tweet. So far, over 600 institutes have been converted into isolation centers, as per the ministry data.