CBSE, College Academic Calendar To Be Revised: If media reports are to be believed, Modi Government is planning to revise the academic calendar for CBSE, State Boards, NCERT and College Programmes to overcome the impact of Coronavirus on education sector. While there has been no official announcement, but a report published in ‘The Print’ has indicated that the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry is mulling the idea of revising the academic calendar at the end of the 21-day national lockdown.
Directions to Develop Alternate Academic Calendar Issued
Report published by the news website claims that HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, has directed all the academic autonomous bodies and states authorities to start preparing an alternate academic calendar. Typically, CBSE Board as well as many school boards complete the exam cycle for the previous session by April and begin the new session by then. Thereafter, students are given a break in the form of Summer Vacations in the months of May and June with the session resuming in July and August months.
However, considering the 21-day lockdown announced by the Central Government, the academic calendar will have to be revised, as schools will not be able to reopen in April due to the COVID-19 epidemic. To solve this problem, HRD ministry is considering announcing the lockdown period as vacation for the students and start the new academic session once the schools reopen after the completion of lockdown period. However, students and parents are advised that this is merely a proposal that is under consideration and no final decision has been taken on this by the government yet.
Board Exam, Entrance Exam Schedules to be Revised
While school academic sessions will be addressed through the revised academic calendar; another aspect that is of concern for the ministry is about the pending CBSE, NIOS and State Board Exams as well as the NTA held Entrance Exams such as JEE Main April Exam and NEET UG 2020. All these authorities have also been asked to work on revised dates that can be announced later to hold these examinations. As of now, NTA – the apex testing agency has only rescheduled JEE Main April Exam, but with the 21-day lockdown, announcement about postponement of NEET UG 2020 is also around the corner.
NEET 2020 postponed due to coronavirus outbreak
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-UnderGraduate (NEET UG) 2020 scheduled for May 3, 2020 has been postponed to the last week of May. Accordingly, the admit cards which were scheduled to be issued on Friday will be issued after assessing the situation after April 15, 2020. The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday decided to not issue the admit card. The Joint Entrance Examination (Main) will also be rescheduled as the lock down will continue till April 14.
NTA in its public notice issued on Friday evening stated that now the NEET UG 2020 “is proposed to be held in the last week of May 2020. Exact date will be announced later after assessing the situation.”
The decision was taken after a meeting between senior officials of the ministries of health and family welfare and human resource development on Friday.
The notice issued by Vineet Joshi, director general, NTA, stated: “In view of the hardships faced by the parents and students due to COVID-19 epidemic, the NTA has postponed the ensuing NEET (UG) May 2020 examination scheduled to be held on May 3, 2020.” NTA advised the students to keep visiting the official website for updates and said that candidates are also being informed individually through their registered mobile/ email ids.