New Delhi | Jagran Education Desk: In an attempt to make up for the losses the coronavirus pandemic has had in curtailing the normal academic growth in schools, universities and higher education institutions across the country – the government is likely to ask the academic institutions to reschedule their respective academic calendars by advancing or cutting short the summer break.
A panel of University Grants Commission (UGC) is supposed to recommend the start of online classes for higher education institutions (HEIs) during lockdown and subsequent guidelines for pending semester/term-end exams.
The commission is expected to submit the suggestion to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Times of India reported.
“There is a possibility the lockdown period from April 1 will be considered the summer break. So probably by mid or third-week of May, academic activities may restart,” an official was quoted as saying by Times of India.
On Friday, the Punjab government preponed the summer vacations of all schools in the state. Now the one-month summer break will start from April 11 and end on May 10, state’s Education minister Vijay Inder Singla said on Twitter.
A similar pattern of preponement of summer break is likely to be followed by other states, as per the report.
Many Schools and Universities across the country have already begun remote learning for their students by through virtual mediums.
The institutions are likely to be asked to continue conducting classes online, if not already and leave the practical part for the post-lockdown period.
While the option of conducting online examinations is also being looked at, many public universities are learnt to have expressed their inability due to multiple factors.
Among such, Delhi University is considering cancellation of the semester examination for first and second-year students. The proposal has been forwarded by senior officials of the University to the Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi in a video conference where various issues were discussed, DU Express, one of the University’s independent news portals reported.
Posted By: Abhinav Gupta
