Ritika Chopra

Sanjeev Sharma was appointed V-C only a year ago, after his predecessor, Arvind Agrawal, resigned halfway through his term amidst allegations of falsifying his academic records

In a letter sent to the states, Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said, “Taking into consideration the interest of a large number of students it has been decided to grant exemption from the lockdown measures for the conduct of Board Exams for Classes 10th and 12th.”

Educationists and policymakers, especially of countries where schools have never remained closed for such extended periods, are now looking at the West Africa experience for important insights into the short- and long-term consequences of government-mandated classroom shutdown

Early declaration of JEE (Advanced) results and less number of counselling rounds, sources in IIT-Delhi said, will help the IITs start classes for first-year students by early October. It is proposed to declare JEE Advanced result within a week.

As for higher education institutions, the Ministry is keen that at one time, only half the student strength is on campus.

CBSE exam results will most likely be announced by August-end, before the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) declare the merit list for JEE Advanced.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), The Indian Express has learnt, has been asked by the HRD Ministry to double the number of test centres to maintain social distancing during the exam.

The JEE (Main), the gateway exam for admission to the NITs, will be held over five days between July 18 and July 23. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical programmes will be held on July 26.

The final policy draft limits itself to giving students “plenty of opportunities to be involved in sports, culture/arts clubs, activity clubs, community service projects”.

The decision is expected to pave the way for Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to enter the Legislative Council.

Sources told The Indian Express that the EC is likely to agree to Koshyari’s request and hold polls to the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24, at the earliest. The poll panel has called a meeting Friday morning to examine the matter.

The 2020-21 academic year may not have a winter break and follow six-day teaching week to make for the learning time lost due to the classroom shutdown.

CBSE stopped the evaluation of answer scripts on March 18. It needs one-and-a-half months to evaluate more than 1 crore answer sheets.

The UGC had set up two committees this month, in the wake of the government-mandated classroom shutdown, to suggest an indicative academic calendar for 2020-21 and ways to promote online learning to make up for the learning disruption.

Currently, UGC rules allow higher education institutes to offer up to 20 per cent of their courses in a programme each semester online.

The panel had advised against making online examinations mandatory given “the diversity, local environments, composition of the students and preparedness of the learners, current infrastructure and technology support”.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the Union government announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the outbreak.

The impasse continued even as state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha claimed that the scarcity of viral transport medium (VTM) and RNA extraction kits from the Centre was the main reason behind the low testing numbers in the state, and announced 32 new cases had been detected since Tuesday.

The IMCT, led by Additional Secretary Apurva Chandra, is learnt to have spent Wednesday waiting for West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiv Sinha to respond to a letter requesting field visits and detailed presentation by the state Health Department.