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Educationists have called for the cancellation of CLAT 2020 because of the coronavirus scare. They are proposing alternative assessment methods for giving admission to students at various colleges.
The coronavirus pandemic has severely affected the nation overall and has given way to a whole new type of chaos everywhere. One of the many sectors that have experienced the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic first hand is the education system of India. Schools, colleges, and universities everywhere were shut down, in some places even before the nationwide lockdown had been enforced. Many entrance exams were postponed and some authorities changed the mode of certain exams and conducted them through the online mode.
However, for exams in which a huge number of students appear, it is difficult to organise them online considering many students do not have access to proper internet connectivity or computer systems. As the coronavirus cases are rising at an alarming rate, educationists from many parts of the country are calling to scrap the national level exams that are yet to be held for this year. People are pitching different ideas for giving admission to students instead of going forward with conducting exams like CLAT, NEET, JEE Main etc.
Also Read:List of Exams Cancelled or Postponed Due to the Coronavirus (COVID 19) Outbreak in India
Recently, the CLAT Consortium had conducted a survey in which the applicants who are supposed to appear for the exam this year were asked to submit their preference wise choices of how the exam should be conducted. It is being speculated that CLAT 2020 will be held online and there is a massive group of students who are not in favour of it.
The Tamil Nadu Secretary of the Save Higher Education Movement, Dr. R Murali, spoke on the matter and said that the COVID-19 pandemic has distressed everyone and the cases are only expected to rise in the upcoming months. In a situation like this, it will be highly impossible to conduct an exam safely in which lakhs of students appear. He said that the exams should be scrapped for at least this academic year.
Also Read:How to Approach College Admissions During the Coronavirus Pandemic
V Jayendran Mani, another educationalist and the President of Tirunelveli matriculation schools, said that postponing the exams until the COVID-19 cases reduce is also not an option since it will gravely affect the mental health of students. He suggested that students can be given admission on the basis of their marks in the class 12th board exams. He also gave the example of engineering colleges in Kerala which conduct admissions based on the merit of candidates in the qualifying degree.
