Showing early signs of severely impacting the higher education sector, the COVID-19 outbreak has all but put paid to the government’s target to commence next academic year’s undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses on June 1 to coincide with the reopening of schools in the State.
The looming uncertainty is feared to undo the efforts being undertaken during the last two years to synchronise the academic calendar of all universities.
Unlikely
With the spurt in COVID-19 cases forcing the government to suspend all examinations temporarily, it appears highly unlikely that most universities will be able to publish the results of UG examinations within the deadline of April 30.
While Kannur and Calicut Universities have already completed the conduct of the final-year degree examinations and commenced the valuation of the answer sheets, Mahatma Gandhi University launched the examinations only on March 16. The final-year examinations in colleges affiliated to the University of Kerala were set to get under way on March 23. Besides, the Higher Education Department has fixed a deadline of May 31 for publishing the results of the PG courses.
The completion of the process by April 30 would have provided ample time to commence the PG courses on June 1 after completing at least two rounds of allotment. Similarly, the expected delay in completing the Class XII CBSE, ISC and State board examinations will adversely impact the admission process for undergraduate courses.
The efforts to streamline the academic calender have largely remained on track owing to a rigid stance adopted by the government and universities to refrain from heeding to requests to defer examinations.
The steps that were being taken to strictly adhere to the schedule have also enabled universities to clear examination backlogs to a large extent. The measures had enabled the commencement of PG courses on June 17, a improvement considering that Kerala varsity could launch their classes only on November 24 in 2018.
