BENGALURU: Even as the census duty is scheduled from April 16 for school teachers and college lecturers, the Karnataka State PU College Lecturers Association has submitted a petition to the Principal Secretary, School Education Department and Chief Commissioner of GBA, seeking exemption from census due to academic workload including exam duty, evaluation, online coaching for CET, NEET and JEE for second PU students. 

Ningegowda AH, the President of Karnataka State Pre-University College Lecturers’ Association said, “The 2nd PUC result will be declared on April 7. The recount of marks and revaluation will also follow. All science stream faculties are assigned to CET/NEET/JEE online classes till April 20.

The National Institute of Open Schooling Theory Examination will be held from April 10 to May 6. The Karnataka Examination Authority will conduct the ‘CET-2026’ entrance exam on April 23 and 24.” Ningegowda added, “The 2nd PUC examination-2 will be held from April 25 to May 8 as per the already fixed schedule. The National Testing Agency will conduct NEET-2026 on May 3. Therefore, only PU college lecturers will be deputed for all these tasks.”

The association said, the School Education Department (Pre-Univeristy) was conducting online classes every day for 25,000 selected students of the 2nd PUC Science stream of government pre-university colleges starting from the academic year 2025-26, to train them for CET/NEET/JEE entrance exams. However, due to the preparatory examination, practical examination and annual examination, online live classes were temporarily suspended.

Now, the same classes are being held from April 1 to 20 for almost 20 days. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology classes for 4 hours daily will be conducted and all lecturers are required to participate compulsorily. Hence, the lecturers are demanding exemption from census work.