The Karnataka government has decided to conduct exams only for the final semester students, while promoting all the intermediate semester students pursuing degree and post-graduation courses including engineering, and diploma for the current academic year (2019-20) without examinations, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The examinations for the final semester students will be conducted before the end of September 2020, as per the UGC guidelines.
Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan, who is in charge of higher education, said, "COVID-19 has disrupted the education system. As the colleges and varsities could not conduct the classes, online learning was introduced during the lockdown. It has received good response. We discussed the possibility of conducting both offline classes and examinations. But due to the sudden spike in the viral infection, we decided to promote all the intermediate semester students without exams."
According to the minister, the 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.
“Students who want to better their scores may appear for the 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. The carry over of backlog subjects will be allowed”, said the minister.
Defending the government decision to conduct examinations for the final semester students amid the pandemic, Narayan said, "Final semester exams are being conducted with due consideration to the students' future. The academic evaluation forms the core of the higher education system and academic performance of students needs to be assessed. Moreover, the companies too will hire based on the student's academic excellence and the grades he or she will secure. So, exams are inevitable and universities have been instructed to prepare for the conduct of exams.”
The K-CET 2020 examination will be held on the decided dates of July 30 and 31.
Online classes from September
The Higher Education department has also directed the colleges to conduct online classes for the academic year 2020-21 from September 1 and offline classes from October 1.
A students' helpline ( 080-22341394) has also been setup to address the concerns.
