Srinagar: After unprecedented delay due to the lockdown in Kashmir that began on August 5, the University of Kashmir has finally scheduled the 1st semester exams for post-graduate courses in February-March. However, the students are complaining that “no class work” has been held to justify holding the examinations.
After conducting the entrance test for different programmes in July last year, the KU was confronted with the challenge of conducting class work after lockdown began in the valley in August after the government of India abrogated Article 370.
Although the varsity managed to complete last year’s admission process and even conducted many examinations of late, it could not conduct class work due to the lockdown.
Now, in anticipation of compensating the lost academic period, the varsity has scheduled the PG 1st semester examinations of 2019 batch students in February-March, Controller Examinations at KU, Prof Farooq Ahmad Mir, told Kashmir Reader.
With class work at KU resuming on February 3, Prof Mir said that they had fixed a schedule of examinations according to which PG 2nd semester exams of 2018 batch students will also be held by March.
In view of inadequate class work, the varsity administration has already made available the study material for students on KU’s website ‘www.kashmiruniversity.net’ and at the respective departments as well, he added.
Prof Mir further said that they will shorten the stipulated time period allotted to a semester in order to prevent any delay in the students’ exams and, by extension, the period of their academic degrees.
“If a semester is spread, say, over a period of ten weeks, we are trying to bring it down to just 7 weeks,” he said.
Prof Mir further said that the PG 2nd semester exams, which had been long pending, had been conducted by many departments while the rest would be conducted in coming weeks.
Semester-end examinations at KU have been constantly delayed since the floods in Kashmir 2014. Frequent shutdowns in recent years have led to results of many academic degrees being delayed.
This has prompted Kashmir University to now hold combined exams of 5th and 6th semester students. The varsity has also been framing objective-type question papers of UG semester exams in order to expedite examination results.
Meanwhile, the PG 1st semester students of the 2019 batch complained of “no class work” in the opening semester. A student even said, “We don’t have a clue about the syllabus of the 1st semester, not to talk of class work.”

Irshad Khan