Karnataka deputy CM says no summer holidays, exams to be held as scheduled

CN Ashwatha Narayana says pandemic will not stop any examination or academic activity.

There will be no summer holidays in the academic year 2021-22 in Karnataka in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwatha Narayana on Saturday, adding that no examination or academic activity will be stopped on account of the pandemic.

Narayana further said that measures are being taken to ensure that the academic activities are not affected, and after the completion of the ongoing examinations, there will be no summer holidays. (iStock/HT Archive)

"The examinations at the university level including degree, post-graduation, engineering, diploma and all other courses which come under the department of higher education will be conducted as per the scheduled timetable and there will be no changes," said Narayana, who also holds the higher education portfolio.

The decision has been taken as academic activities for the year 2021-22 are already delayed and there should not be further delay in this process due to COVID-19. "If this gets delayed, the cycle of the course, tests, results, employments, and further studies will be affected."

Narayana further said that measures are being taken to ensure that the academic activities are not affected, and after the completion of the ongoing examinations, there will be no summer holidays.

"Functioning of the classes will begin immediately and there will be both offline and online classes. Online classes will be started quite early. It will be mandatory for students either to attend online or offline classes," he added.

All standard operating procedures (SoPs) will be strictly followed and sanitisation of classrooms, maintenance of hygiene, COVID test, maintenance of physical distance, and wearing of masks will be compulsory.

He further informed that the Integrated Learning Management System (LMS) has already been implemented in view of COVID-19. "Students are facilitated to learn from the locations wherever they are and 2.70 lakh Tablet PCs (1.60 lakh this year and 1.10 lakh in the previous year) have been distributed. Classrooms are being converted as studios and they are made to become smart classrooms."

Responding to a query with regard to LMS, he said, the glitch in the upload of content will be resolved soon. (ANI)