UGC has released the new academic calendar due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in country and suggested that classes for 2nd and 3rd year students can begin from 1^st August 2020 and that for fresh batch i.e. for first semester/year students it can begin from 1^st September 2020.

In the present circumstances, the UGC has listed some major concerns regarding these COVID-19 pandemics which are as follows:

1. Ensuring the health, safety and security of the students, faculty and staff and also to continue academic activities.
2. Conducting the examinations and declaration of results.
3. Facilitating the students to participate in further admissions, placement processes, research and training etc.
4. Charting out a plan for the next academic session.

“All the universities may follow a 6-day week pattern to compensate the loss for the remaining session of 2019-20 and the next session 2020-21” mentioned in guidelines by UGC.

For the session 2020-2021 fresh admissions, the Commission has suggested the August 1 - August 31 period. For the new academic session, odd semester exams can be held between January 1 and January 25 and even semester can begin from January 27.

"In order to overcome such challenges in future, the faculty should be adequately trained for the use of ICT and online teaching tools, so that they complete about 25% of the syllabus through online teaching and 75% syllabus through face to face teaching," says UGC.

Suggested Calendar by UGC for the academic session 2019-2020:

*If situation so demands, the universities can have Summer Vacations for 30 days from 01-06-2020 to 30-06-2020. In that case the teaching-learning through various modes can be held up to 15-05-2020 and subsequently Finalization of Dissertation etc. may be completed from 16-05-2020 to 31-05-2020.

Suggested Calendar by UGC for the academic session 2020-2021:

* For courses more than 3-yearduration, the university may plan accordingly.

In UGC guidelines UGC has also asked institutes to develop virtual classroom and video conferencing facility and train all teaching staff in using the technology. Universities have also been asked to make use of virtual laboratories to facilitate students of science/ engineering/ technology streams.