The Kerala government has postponed all school, higher secondary education (HSE), and university examinations, given the COVID-19 threat, until further notice.
A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took the decision here on Friday morning.
An estimated 4.2 lakh students are in the middle of their preparations for the final phase of the Class X examination that commenced on March 10.
The tests were scheduled to conclude on March 26 if they had gone as per the timetable.
The government also cancelled the Plus One and Plus Two examinations, which had commenced alongside the SSLC examination and roughly followed the same calendar. As many as 8,91,577 students are appearing for the higher secondary examinations in Kerala with the maximum number of candidates 80,051 from Malappuram district.
The government also stopped all university examinations, including those planned for Friday. The move caught hundreds of college students by surprise.
The postponement of the examinations could upset the academic calendar. However, government officials said the measure was inevitable to pre-empt the community spread of the infection.
