Fact Check: Students, don't worry! UGC has not issued any circular related to offline examinations
A message about University Grants Commission is widely being shared on WhatsApp.
By Tejal Sinha Published on 8 Feb 2022 5:00 PM IST
Hyderabad: A message about University Grants Commission is widely being shared on WhatsApp.
It is being claimed that the university semester exams will be conducted at home centers.
The viral message reads, " BIG NEWS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS. Offline examinations in all universities semester courses for all upcoming semesters at home centers -University Grants Commission (UGC)"
NewsMeter received the viral message on WhatsApp.
Fact Check
The claim is a hoax.
NewsMeter began its investigation by performing a keyword search. The search led us to a tweet by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check on December 12, 2021.
According to the tweet, a circular was being shared on social media with a similar claim. We noticed that the viral message that is currently going viral, was similar to that of the circular shared by PIB.
"All the Colleges and Universities are functioning while maintaining COVID-19 protocols. Offline examinations can be held maintaining social distancing at their home centers. So, all the Universities are hereby advised to conduct current and future semester examinations in offline mode while maintaining COVID-19 protocols. Universities are requested to take proper precautionary measures for the preparation of conducting examinations in offline mode," reads the letter.
Taking a cue from this, we visited the official website of 'University Grants Commission'.
On searching for any such notice being issued by the UGC, we did not find any such circular on their website. However, on December 13, 2021, the website had published a notice against public news.
"It has come to the notice of the commission that a public notice dated on 10.12.2021 claiming to have been issued by the secretary having instructions with regard to the conduct of offline examinations in universities and colleges, has appeared in various print and electronic media including social media (Annexure-1). It is being clarified that the said public notice has not been issued by the UGC. It is further clarified that all the public notices issued by the UGC are regularly uploaded on the UGC website www.ugc.ac.in," reads the notice.
The pdf of the notice had also included a screenshot of the circular being debunked by the PIB Fact Check.
Meanwhile, no such information related to the offline examinations was even published by the mainstream media.
Hence, it is evident that the claim is a hoax. No such circular has been shared by UGC via WhatsApp or any other social media platform.
