UGC suggests to reduce academic year in pandemic recovery guideline

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has made a set of recommendations in its recovery guideline for public universities amid the pandemic, including cutting the academic year short and cancelling holidays.

On Tuesday, the regulator body forwarded it’s six-point guideline to the vice-chancellors and registrars of all public universities.

On May 31, the commission decided to formulate a recovery guideline according to the capacity and reality of the universities at a virtual meeting with the Ministry of Education, and the vice-chancellors of all public universities.

 The guidelines:

The authorities of the respective universities must significantly reduce the duration of the conventional or existing academic calendar;

Various holidays (summer vacation, winter vacation, festival vacation) may be reduced or cancelled to complete the final examination of class/class tests/assignments/quizzes/semesters in all subjects including practical subjects in case of semesters/terms or annual term;

The duration of each class (theoretical and practical) will remain the same as the duration of the lecture class cannot be reduced. However, if necessary, even if the number of lectures is reduced, the entire syllabus has to be completed;

In order to reduce the time of the academic calendar, issues like class tests / quizzes / midterm exam / assignment / term paper can be reconsidered;

The gap between the examination of two subjects and the gap between the year/semester/term for “preparatory leave” for the examination can be reduced during the final examination;

There must be approval for the implementation of the recovery plan through the Academic Council. After that, at the beginning of the academic year, the approved academic calendar should be informed to the students and published on the website of the respective university.