Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced that examinations for college students, except those in their final semesters, stands cancelled. The latest announcement will be applicable to students who have to write arrear exams. However, students who have arrears from the final semesters will still have to write exams.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said that the state government has already granted exemptions to students who were to appear for the regular exams.
“Accepting requests from the students and keeping in mind their welfare, and based on the recommendations made by the expert committee set up by government of Tamil Nadu, examinations for students who have registered to write their semester exams, except the final semester exams, will be cancelled as per the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and marks will be provided to them,” the statement said. The Chief Minister added that a detailed government order will be issued in this regard soon.
Weeks ago, the government of Tamil Nadu had issued a government order exempting students pursuing Bachelors and Masters programmes in arts, sciences and engineering from writing their semester exams. The order is applicable to all students except those in their final semesters. The state government also granted exemption for students in polytechnic courses and those pursuing Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) with the same condition around final semester exams. Several questions were raised at that time about the fate of those who have registered to write their arrears this year.
The UGC had ordered all universities and colleges to complete conducting final semester exams for students by September 30. Tamil Nadu had written to the Union Minister for Education explaining that it was not possible to conduct exams by September 30 in Tamil Nadu due to rising COVID-19 cases and other practical difficulties.
Recently the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had also filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court granting permission to the institutes of higher education to open its doors just for the limited purposes of conducting these exams. As per Unlock 3 guidelines issued by the Central government, educational institutions are not permitted to reopen till August 31.