The academic year of 2020 has been highly affected by the Corona Virus Pandemic (Covid-19). Students who were preparing for entrance exams for Btech Admission and others will be facing delays and disruptions. The students who were supposed to appear for board exams will also have to suffer because of the delay. The latest updates on the examinations will be announced only after revising the current situation. However, the students shouldn’t stop doing their preparation because it is wrong to assume that no examinations will take place throughout the country because of Covid-19.
Few announcements have been made regarding UPSEE examinations. The examinations will be conducted on 2nd august 2020. The online correction of UPSEE forms has been scheduled from 18th may 14.00 hours to 18th may 23.59 hours. Both the central and the state governments had to take stern steps to shut all educational institutions, shopping malls and every other public places to contain the spread of the virus. The experts are focusing on imparting lessons through the online mode, but it is very difficult to make it a success because of lack of infrastructure in schools and colleges. Because of the digital gap, the students may need to face huge problems for this particular academic year. The academic session of 2020-2021 will have to face delay and the Government of India has ordered the educational institutions to revise the academic calendar of 2020-2021. All the registration and engineering admission process have been postponed because of extension of the nationwide lockdown. Very soon we will be entering Lockdown 4.0 and this is creating a panic among the students. This entire pandemic situation is uncertain because no one knows when things will get back to normal. Keeping in mind the safety of the students as well as the teachers, all the major exams like JEE, GUJCET, KCET and other entrance examinations which were supposed to be held in April have been postponed till further notice. Not all the colleges in India follow a similar process for admission to top Btech courses. Different colleges have different criteria for selecting the candidates.
Also, the students who got recruited in campus placements are in dilemma because majority of the companies are either withdrawing or delaying the offer. The placement processes have been put on hold due to the pandemic situation. The campus placements for most of the engineering schools take place twice a year- April and December. Though some have been lucky to get a job, there are many students who are still searching for jobs. The placement season of 2020 will also be suffering a massive decline.
Will the 2020 academic year suffer due to this pandemic?
As mentioned above, with postponement of all college, board and university examinations, the colleges have to face a massive challenge for completing the syllabus. A large part of the students depend on offline mode of admissions because of lack of Wi-Fi facilities and the students belonging to the rural areas/towns depend on offline mode of admission. To implement digital media in a country like India, lots of effort and time will be needed. Based on the current scenario, the education system will have to face lot of delays and there is a need for integrated planning to revise the academic year of 2020.
