New Academic Session will start from November 1: University Grants Commission

The higher education regulator the University Grants Commission (UGC) has permitted the new academic session to be started in colleges from November 1.

Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Cabinet Minister for Education, informed it in a tweet from his Twitter handle @DrRPNishank. He tweeted, "In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission has accepted the Report of the Committee and approved the UGC Guidelines on Academic Calendar for the First Year of Under-Graduate and Post-Graduate Students of the Universities for the Session 2020-21."

Due to Covid-19, the UGC was confronted with vital issues of examinations and academic calendar. It constituted an Expert Committee to deliberate on these issues and make recommendations to address them.

The Committee submitted a report in April this year which deliberated on the following issues (1) Modes of Teaching-learning Process, (2) Academic Calendar for the Session 2019-20, (3) Modes of Examinations (4) Academic Calendar for the Session 2020-21 (5) Functioning of Laboratories.

Since the UGC has accepted it, the report says, "The Academic Session 2020-21 may commence from 01.8.2020 for old students and from 01.09.2020 for fresh students."

It also suggests many other guidelines. It said, "All the universities may follow a 6-day week pattern to compensate the loss for the remaining session of 2019-20 and the next session 2020-21."

It added, "In view of the importance of “social distancing”, universities may take necessary steps to ensure that the students are given exposure to laboratory assignments/ practical experiments through virtual laboratories, sharing of the recorded visuals of laboratory work and digital resources available for the purpose. The link provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development for virtual laboratories to facilitate the students of science/ engineering/ technology streams may also be suitable for such purposes."

The guideline also says that every institute should develop a virtual classroom and video conferencing facility and all teaching staff should be trained with the use of technology.

"The universities should prepare e-content/e-lab experiments and upload the same on their websites. The universities should strengthen the mechanism of mentor-mentee counselling through a dedicated portal on the university website to impart timely guidance and counselling to the students. Besides, the faculty advisor and supervisor assigned to each student should maintain regular communication with the students."