In a significant move to safeguard students in view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, the Karnataka government has taken a decision to promote all intermediate semester students pursuing degree and post-graduation courses including engineering, and diploma courses for the academic year 2019-20 without examinations.
Further, the government also announced that examinations for the final semester students would be conducted before the end of September 2020, as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines. The Governor of Karnataka has given his assent for the same.
Announcing this, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Higher Education Dr Ashwath Narayan CN added that the decision will be limited to the academic year 2019-20 only.
He said that 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.
"If students feel to better their scores, provisions will be made for them to take examinations during the next semester and 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 said.
"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. Compes 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 corroborated.
Narayan said that the next academic session in the universities will be through online classes tentatively from September 1, 2020, for the first and higher semester and offline (classroom) teaching from October 1 or as may be directed by state government/MHA/UGC guidelines.
"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, already," Deputy Chief Minister said.
"Covid-19 has jolted the education system. The cardinal concern the government had was to safeguard the future of our student friends while keeping them away from contracting infections and keep them in good health. This decision has been arrived at after thorough consultations with academic experts and University VC's," added Narayan.
( With inputs from ANI )