First-year students may be promoted without exams: Education Minister

NEW DELHI: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has said that the University Grants Commission (UGC) is working on finalising the list of 100 universities which will offer online degree programme as announced by the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman recently.

The minister discussing the challenges to opportunities during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and measures to combat in higher education institutions also asked the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to work on the modalities to accredit online degree courses to be launched soon.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, recently announced that the top 100 universities will be allowed to offer online degree programmes from May 30, 2020 as a part of Government of India's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ urged institutions to get themselves registered on NAAC and get accredited for their improvement and improvement of the education sector.

Academics After COVID-19

Pokhriyal said that the UGC has formed a task force to carry out the academic activity in the post COVID-19 lockdown scenario and in areas where the situation does not improve even after the session commences in July, the students of the first year will be promoted based on their internal assessment. Final-year exams will take place depending on the situation.

Talking about the vacant teaching positions in higher education institutions, HRD minister said that the positions were not being filled because of legal issues and thousands of vacant positions have been filled in past some time. “The process to fill up 12,000 teaching posts have been set in motion in central institutions and state universities have also advertised to fill up 30,000 posts,” said Pokhriyal.

National Education Policy Ready

Talking about the New Education Policy, HRD Minister said that the draft of the policy is ready, which will be India centric.

He also said that the students can reach out to the UGC in case of the challenges being faced by them, even they can reach out to the ministry for their grievances.

The webinar had vice-chancellors, registrars, professors, principals and teachers from across the country participating and was hosted by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Today’s webinar was the fourth webinar hosted by the HRD Minister, earlier he held an online session with parents and students on April 29 and later May 5. During his second webinar, he announced that the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main exams will be conducted from July 18 to 23 and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Under Graduate (NEET-UG) exam will be conducted on July 26.

The HRD Ministry also conducted a webinar with teachers on May 14 understanding their challenges and concerns.

Also read:

• Class 10, 12 CBSE Board exams to be conducted between July 1 and 15
  
• Not waiting for UGC, several institutions start holding exams online
  

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