Forty students who have tested positive for COVID wrote their exams from various COVID exam centres.As promised, Dr Ashwath Narayan C N, Minister for Higher Education, had arranged separate centres for these 40 students across Karnataka.
With a lot of curiosity, Edexlive visited one of the exam centres dedicated separately for COVID students and checked for the arrangements. While the government officials did not allow us to walk inside, they answered the queries from a particular distance. At this exam centre located at Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra Bangalore, there were four COVID students who wrote Maths and Biology papers. Harish Kumar, Education officer, BBMP, said, "A total of 11 students suffering from COVID are writing exams in Bengaluru. While four students are in GKVK, eleven students have been allocated to write exams at the NSS Bhavan in Jnana Bharti Campus. There are two nodal officers who are deputed by the KEA and an invigilator from the state government at GKVK. The invigilator who will be inside the exam hall has been given a PPE kit. There are also two paramedical staff to look after the medicine and food of these students. Everything is being monitored from a distance and there are two ambulances stranded at these exam centres."
Similarly, in Ballari, the picture was no different. Invigilators were given PPE Kits and the district administration had made proper arrangements in one of the Dental colleges for six COVID students to write their exams.
After making the students and parents wait for more than 14 hours, the Karnataka High Court finally struck down the petitions and allowed the Government of Karnataka and The Karnataka Examination Authority to go ahead with the Common Entrance Test on July 30 and 31. This year, a total of 1,94,356 students will write CET in 497 centres across the state of which around 40,200 students will write exams in 83 centres in Bengaluru.
On July 29, the advocates representing petitioners and advocate representing the state government had argued with various facts and figures. The petitioners advocate Anil Kumar and Abdullah Mannan Khan and Senior Advocate AS Ponnanna had argued that when the centre has postponed exams like JEE, AIEEE and NEET to September, what was the necessity for the state government to conduct CET exams. On top of it, Bengaluru city has recorded more than 50,000 cases and there seems to be no stop to the spread. However, Ashwathnarayan C N had already told the media that no matter what, the state will go ahead with the exams as it had made all the necessary arrangements.
