UGC releases revised guidelines for academic calendar 2020-21; check dates

The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday released guidelines for the academic calendar for the first-year of under-graduate and post-graduate students of colleges and universities for the session 2020-21 in view of Covid-19 pandemic.

The statutory authority also released the tentative calendar for first-year university students of under-graduate (UG), and post-graduate (PG) courses for the session 2020-21. Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal shared the UGC session calendar on Twitter, earlier in the day.

According to the UGC calendar, the academic session for the fresh batch will start from November, and the delay is likely to impact the next academic session as well. The revised calendar states that a full refund of fees for admission cancellation will be made on account of all cancellation of admissions/migration of students till November.

The admission process for first-year students needs to be completed by October 31, and classes for the first semester should begin by November 1, according to the UGC session calender. November 30 is the last date for admissions to fill up the remaining vacant seats. Colleges and universities have been asked to teach six days a week without any summer or winter break, for the next two academic sessions, in order to compensate for the loss of academic time.

All the universities will follow a six-day week pattern for the academic session 2020-21.

“The start of first year of academic session 2020-2021 is delayed due to the circumstances beyond control but efforts be made to compensate the loss of this period by curtailing the breaks (summer, winter etc). This would ensure that these students would timely complete their three-year UG/PG programme,” the UGC communicated to colleges and universities.

On cancellation/ withdrawal of admissions up to December 31, 2020, the entire fee collected from a student will be refunded in full after deduction of not more than ₹1000 as processing fee, reported the LiveMint.