Telangana colleges to conduct undergraduate, postgraduate exams from 20 June

Hyderabad: The undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) examination in Telangana will start from 20 June, the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) announced on 29 May. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown had disrupted the examination schedule.

According to the council, examinations will be conducted only for final semester students of all UG and PG programmes, including for students with backlogs. Examinations for students of intermediate semesters will be conducted after the colleges reopen in November/December along with odd semesters main examinations. The students of intermediate semesters will be promoted to the next higher semester irrespective of the number of backlogs.

The council conducted a meeting on Friday with registrars and controllers of all universities to discuss UGC guidelines and the challenges universities are facing in conducting the examinations. Based on the guidelines recommended by the UGC committee, the council has decided to reduce the duration of the examination from three hours to two hours. The question paper pattern will be accordingly modified. However, it will cover the entire syllabus. Each university is free to choose the pattern of the question paper. To compensate for the reduced exam time, more choices may be given while setting the question paper, the council said.

Meanwhile, the exams for conventional UG programmes will be conducted daily in two sessions, i.e. B.Com in one session and B.A and B.Sc. in another session. Colleges will conduct the practical examinations for these courses and the principals have been authorised to appoint examiners, both internal and external, for the practicals. Project viva-voce and seminars, if any, will be conducted online.

As per the UGC guidelines, Ph.D. seminars/Viva-Voce examinations will be conducted online. For the seminars and Viva-Voce, the web/app link has to be shared with DRC members, faculty members, and research scholars of the concerned departments and other related persons well in advance.

The council has decided to entrust the conduct of examinations and the valuation of two-credit courses such as SEC, AECC, and GE to the colleges. The colleges will be asked to upload the awards to the university portal through the link provided and submit answer scripts and hard copies of the award list to the examination branch as is already being done in the case of practical examinations.

Based on preliminary discussions, the TSCHE formulated these general guidelines in the form of advisory to all the universities. The universities and colleges have been instructed to strictly adhere to the COVID-19 protocols during the examinations. The guidelines issued by the council are applicable only for this academic year, i.e. 2019-20.