As per the sources, UGC had told that session for 2020-2021 will start from August 1 for old students or continuing students, and for the fresh students, it will start from September 1 according to the latest guidelines.
In the recent university Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines on new academic sessions, this year may be expressive as in that case, Universities are thinking to go ahead with the same since they think some improvement in the current lockdown situation.
According to the latest guidelines for beginning new academic sessions and examination, UGC has specified that the session for 2020-2021 could commence from August 1 for old or continuing students and by 1 September, the session will start for new students.
According to the reports, Amity University said that for students of Amity and academic processes are equally important for the university. As planning to ensure safety they observe and fully follow the central and state government’s guidelines and all the universities will also have to see that whether they are not putting the lives of students in danger for academics.
E-learning will give a boost up to the classroom session plan ensuring social distancing, Universities should introduce E-learning wherever important without compromising the quality of education standards, and emphasize the mentoring role of the teacher. With this broad strategy, the university will be able to follow and observe the UGC guidelines.
If we talk about Shiv Nadar University, They said or stated that while UGC’s suggestions were good, they assumed a “Quality level of improvement in the situation, therefore, they shall also use the pandemic time to prepare for high-quality online delivery of our courses in case students are unable to come in campus right now”.
However, according to Manipal Academy of Higher Education sources, the registrar and concerned authorities were yet to take a call on the same.
Download PDF >> UGC Guidelines for Exam 2020 PDF File (Click Here) 
In the current scenario, the following issues have been deliberated by the expert committee for UGC Guidelines:
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Modes of Teaching-learning Process
The universities are using classroom mode, i.e. conducting classes in the face to face interaction, with a few exceptions for some courses. Some of the universities lack adequate IT infrastructure for the best outcome of education through e-learning mode. To tackle the pandemic COVID-19 in the educational sector and to ensure continuity in the teaching process, UGC and MHRD have issued certain guidelines on www.ugc.ac.in.The University has process using online modes such as Google Classroom, Google Hangout, Cisco WebEx Meeting, YouTube Streaming.
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Academic Calendar for the Session 2019-20
The universities have completed the examinations of the odd semester during December 2019/ January-2020 and the results have been declared. Most of the institutions had already covered 60% to 70% of the teaching-learning process for on-going Even Semester before the dispersal of classes in March 2020.
Further, the remaining part of the curriculum has been attended/ being attended through online mode as the norms of “social distancing” are to be followed by all educational institutions in the interest of the students, faculty, and the staff.
The norms of social distance will be required to be maintained by the educational institutions for quite some time, even if the normalcy returns by the first week of May 2020. Therefore, for the sake of the safety of the students, faculty, and staff, all universities are required to reschedule the academic calendar 2019- 2020.
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Modes of Examinations
If we talk about of teaching-learning, most of the universities are following the physical mode or classroom mode of examinations. In this manner also, some of the universities lack adequate IT infrastructure for conducting online examinations.
That why, took the eye on the basic infrastructure available at the level of the institutions and accessibility of the internet to the students, especially in remote areas, it is not right to continuously adopt the online mode of examination at this juncture.
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Academic Calendar for the Session 2020-21
In many School Boards, Class XII exams are not done yet, as of now. Even Semester in the universities is also getting delayed because of national lockdown. Due to this, all things of the admission process will delay the university system for the next academic session.
To tackle this condition, the universities may need some changes in their academic calendar for the academic session 2020-21.
Guidelines for UGC
From experts of UGC, some of the guideline by the expert committee for Examinations and Academic calendar for the Universities:
Guideline regarding Examination:
- The universities may use efficient and tech modes of examinations by reducing the time from 3 hours to 2 hours assigned to each examination.
- Maintaining the purity of academic expectations and integrity of the examination process, the universities may adopt alternative and simplified methods of examinations to complete the process in a shorter period in compliance with CBCS requirements as prescribed by UGC from time to time. In this MCQ/ OMR based examinations, Open Book Examination, Open Choices, assignment/ presentation-based assessments, will include, etc.
- For intermediate semester/year students, the universities may conduct examinations, In case the situation of Covid-19 where students are not able to appear to be normal, for maintaining “social distancing”, safety and health of the students, grading of the students should be combined of 50% marks based on the pattern of internal evaluation adopted by the universities and the remaining 50% marks can be awarded based on performance in previous semester only.
- The UGC is working on establishing a Help Line for monitoring student problems related to examinations and activities for the time of COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Government will inform the students in advance regarding the conduct of examination at least one week before.
