Colleges, universities closed down due to COVID-19 cases
As the COVID-19 cases are surging across several states, various governments and educational departments have started closing down their colleges and universities to avoid any spread of infections.
Most of the states have announced closing down of institutes till the end of March. Earlier few states had closed down schools as well.
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Punjab
The Punjab government has shut down all colleges and universities, except medical and nursing colleges till March 31. It had announced closure of schools on March 13. This decision has been taken after the number of COVID-19 cases surged in the state.
Uttar Pradesh
The state has closed down all those colleges and universities where exams are not underway from March 25 to March 31.
It will also close down the state schools up to Class 8 from March 24 to March 31. Presently, the state has 3,036 active coronavirus cases , as per the Union Health Ministry. 8,759 people have lost their lives due to the virus in the state, while 5,95,743 have recovered from the disease.
Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh's Skill Development, Technical Education and Employment department has ordered to shut all government and private engineering colleges, polytechnic colleges, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and skill development training and educational activities.
It had earlier announced automatic promotion for all the school students except those in Class 10 and Class 12.
Telangana
The state has announced closure of all the educational institutions from March 24 due to fresh surge in the virus cases. State Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy said that all government and private run educational institutions, hostels and gurukul institutions will be closed except medical colleges.
The state had reopened the education institutions on February 1 after months of online classes held in 2020 and January 2021. Telangana recorded 412 new COVID-19 cases on March 22 taking the tally of cases to 3,03,867 while death toll rose to 1,674.
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu government has asked higher education institutions to switch to online teaching and said semester exams will also be conducted in virtual mode. All the practical classes will have to be completed before March 31. As the state witnessed a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases over the last few days, the government ordered closure of schools for classes 9, 10 and 11.
The government had in December 2020 allowed functioning of final year classes and for all others since February this year.