The State government has decided to conduct final semester exams for undergraduate and post graduate students in September. However, all students of intermediate semesters will be promoted based on a comprehensive evaluation parameter and exams will not be held for them.
This is applicable for students pursuing undergraduate, post graduate and diploma courses. Speaking at a press conference on July 10, Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said that the Governor of Karnataka, who is the Chancellor of universities, had given his assent for the same.
Mr. Narayan said that the State government took the decision after consulting educationists and Vice Chancellors of universities. He also said the decision was taken keeping in mind the health concerns of students.
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The University Grants Commission too had stated that universities must conduct final semester exams by September.
The Minister stated that the decision would be applicable only for students of the 2019-20 academic year.
The Minister said the COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted classes, adding, “Online learning introduced during the lockdown has received good response and the government tried its best to reach the last person in the chain. Amid these, we were mulling conducting offline classes and examinations too, but owing to increase in the number of cases, we dropped the idea and decided to promote all intermediate semester students.”
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Individual universities will have to take a call on the examination schedule.
Elaborating on how intermediate semester students would be assessed, Mr. Narayan said a comprehensive evaluation scheme, with internal assessment marks and previous year’s/semester’s marks considered in a 50:50 ratio, will be used. “For students in their first semester/year, the evaluation will be completely based on internal assessment marks”, he said.
He said that if students would like to improve their scores, provision would be made for them to appear for exams in the coming semester.
“Students who fail in the comprehensive evaluation process shall be allowed to give exams for the respective subjects in the next semester. Backlog subjects will be carried over as well”, he added.
He, however, said final semester examination will have to be conducted as many companies who will hire students will consider the assessment of the students.
Online classes to begin from Sept. 1
The Department of Higher Education has decided to conduct online classes for the academic year 2020-21. The academic year will begin from September 1 and offline classes will be conducted from October 1.
The Higher Education department has established a helpline to address students grievances: 080-22341394