BENGALURU: The University Grants Commission on Monday approved the academic calendar guidelines for first year undergraduate (UG) and post graduate (PG) students for the academic session 2020-21, in view of the pandemic. Based on the recommendation of the expert committee, the officials have come out with an academic calendar for admissions and examinations for the first year PG and UG students.
As per the guidelines, academic session 2020-21 may commence from November1 for first year students. However, if there is a delay in the declaration of results in the qualifying examination, the universities may plan and start the academic session by November 18, the commission said.There is no hard and fast rule on holding online and offline classes, Bhushan Patwardhan, vice president of UGC, told The New Indian Express.
Merit or entrance-based admissions for these students should complete by October end and the remaining vacant seats should be filled up by November 30, the UGC has suggested. “Institutes that complete their admission process sooner can start their academic year earlier and need not have to wait until November 18. The leeway was given considering the situation in Maharashtra, where examinations will end by October,” Patwardhan said.
The commission said that a full refund will be made on account of cancellation of admissions/ migration of students up to November 30. This means that the entire fees including all charges will be refunded to the students (Zero cancellation charge). Thereafter, on cancellation or withdrawal of admissions up to December 31, the deduction of not more than Rs 1,000 can be made as processing fee.Universities have been advised to curtail their vacations for the timely awarding of degrees to the students.
SSLC supplementary exams start with maths
The SSLC board on Monday started the supplementary examinations for more than 2.1 lakh students across the state. The exam began with the Mathematics paper. Students, who are Covid-19 positive, are being allocated room in the Covid Care Centre. However, the board did not give out any figures of number of students who attended the exam on Monday.