"New college session from Sept, not July, as per Govt panel: Report"

NEW DELHI: The shutting down of universities, colleges and schools since March 16 on account the COVID-19 lockdown has caused a delay in the academic session of 2020-21. A government committee appointed to look at the on issues related to examination and the academic calendar has recommended that the academic session traditionally starting in mid-July be now pushed to September. This means that schools and colleges would now reopen in September as per a report published by The Indian Express.

The seven member committee headed by Haryana Central University vice-chancellor R C Kuhad , and A C Pandey, director of Inter-University Accelerator Centre; Aditya Shastri, vice-chancellor of Banasthali Vidyapeeth; and Raj Kumar, head of Panjab University, as its other members, submitted its report on Friday. The committee had been set up by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to deliberate on issues related to examination and the academic calendar that have taken a setback on account of the COVID lockdown.

With all entrance exams being delayed indefinitely, a delay in the new academic session was not just expected but inevitable. This report however, puts a definite time period to it. The two-month delayed start to the new academic session is one of the recommendations. Others include that the year-end or semester-end examinations which were also postponed indefinitely be held in July.

UGC will frame guidelines on the academic calendar and university examinations based on this report. “The guidelines will not be binding on higher education institutions, but they will lay down the outer time limit by which the government expects them to start their new academic year,” said an anonymous source, who spoke to the Indian Express.

If accepted by the UGC, the next step would be that Union government approach the Supreme Court to seek an extension of the last date for completing admissions to medical and engineering programmes which in normal course would be August 31 and 15 respectively. These deadlines are mandated by the Supreme Court and need a ratification from it before being implemented.

A committee set up by the UGC and headed by Nageshwar Rao, Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), to look at online education has advised against mandatory online examination by universities, citing the “diversity, local environment, composition of students and preparedness of the learners, current infrastructure and technology support”.