Karnataka: Degree & post-grad exams cancelled; final semester exams to be conducted

On Friday, the Karnataka government has decided 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. An official statement from Deputy Chief Minister’s office said the final exams have been delayed and would be conducted before the end of September 2020, as per UGC guidelines.

The University Grants Commission (UGC), higher education regulator, released fresh guidelines recently, saying the end-of-term exams in universities can be held by September-end. Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Higher Education Dr Ashwath Narayan CN, however, cleared that the decision will be limited to the academic year 2019-20 only.

“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. Concerned Universities have been intimated to conduct examinations for all the final year/semester students” Dr Ashwath Narayan added.

The decision comes after consultations with educationalists and university vice chancellors, along with Karnataka Governor's assent.

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COVID in Karnataka

On Thursday, Karnataka breached the 30,000 marks as the state reported its biggest single-day spike of over 2,200 new cases and 17 related fatalities, taking the death toll to 486, the Health department said. The day also saw a record 957 patients getting discharged after recovery, out of which 606 were from Bengaluru Urban. Out of the 2,228 fresh cases reported on Thursday, a whopping 1,373 were from Bengaluru Urban alone. So far 7,28,887 samples have been reported as negative, and of them 17,568 were reported negative today.

"The reason for spike in cases in Bengaluru and other places in recent days is because during the last four months of lockdown we had controlled it very well. But as we relaxed lockdown for economic activities we did not follow certain precautionary measures like distance among other things," said Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar. He added, "Death rate in Karnataka is 1.49 per cent, while in Bengaluru is 1.28 per cent, and our target is to bring it below 1 per cent".

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