The Telangana second-year Intermediate exams, which were scheduled to be held from May 1 to May 19, have been postponed by the state government on Thursday. All first-year Intermediate students will be promoted without exams, the state Higher Education Department announced on Thursday. The move comes after Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams for Class 10 were cancelled and postponed for Class 12 on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Union government announced that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam (NEET) for postgraduate students, scheduled to be held on April 18, will be postponed in light of the surge in COVID-19 cases.
The order to postpone the second-year Intermediate exams in Telangana came from Chitra Ramachandran, Special Chief Secretary to the Telangana government, with the Higher Education Department. It also stated that the COVID-19 situation will be reviewed in June, following which the future dates for the exams will be announced with at least 15 days’ notice.
Those second-year Intermediate students with a backlog will be given minimum passing marks for the backlog papers only. All first-year students will be promoted for the time being, until a future date when exams will be held for them. The Higher Education Department further announced that the 25% weightage given to Intermediate marks for the Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test will not be considered this year.
Students have been calling for the cancellation of the Intermediate exams, citing immense pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A petition was even started online some weeks ago, by an individual named Koumudi Balla. His petition read, “Due to the pandemic, schools and colleges were shut across the state forcing students to attend classes online. While many students struggled to make arrangements to attend the classes, most educational institutions run by the government- due to lack of resources required for online classes failed to conduct the classes,” the petitioner added, “As a result, most colleges failed even to finish 50% of the entire syllabus meant for the academic year of 2020-2021. It is unfair to expect students to attend the exams without proper knowledge of what they will be facing.”