Karnataka will hold KCET 2020 for II PUC students on July 30-31

Despite objection by a large mass and opposition to the conduct of the KCET 2020 exam the government has decided to go ahead with the examination on July 30 and July 31.

"The K-CET 2020 examination will be held on the decided dates of July 30 & 31," the minister for higher education, Dr. Ashwathnarayan announced on Twitter.

"This is an exam where nearly 2 lakh children will write. Aren't you worried about their safety. We know what kind of social distancing we followed during English exam. That is not even called social distancing..Not even 1 feet distance between each student (sic)," Rakshit R, a student responded to the minister's tweet.

The examination is conducted for admission to different courses in the state's institutes.

The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) will issue admit cards in a few days. The number of centres were increased and rescheduled the test that was earlier to be held from April 22 to April 24.

The KCET exam is conducted in English and Kannada medium and the knowledge of the candidates is tested in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.

The paper carries 180 questions and candidates are given three hours. Four options are given for each question and one mark is allotted for correct answer, while there is no negative marking.

The overall pass percentage of the II PUC exam is 61.8%, a minor increase from last year that was 61.73%. The regular students from Udupi and Dakshin Kannada have a tie in the passing percentage as 90.71% students have cleared the exams in both these regions followed by Kodagu and Uttara Kannada which have passing percentages of 81.53% and 80.97%.  

Out of 6,75,277 students who appeared for examinations, 4,17,297 students have cleared the test. Girls have once again excelled in the exams with 68.73% pass percentage while boys at 54.77%.

The pass percentage of the students in the science stream is more when compared to Arts and Commerce.  

While the pass percentage of the students in urban areas is 62.6%, in rural it is 58.99%. The passing percentage of the students from the English medium is 72.45% while that of the Kannada medium is 47.56%.

Specially abled students had a passing percentage of 61.45%. 1,777 specially abled students appeared for the II PUC exams.   

On Monday, the state education minister, Suresh Kumar said that the supplementary exams for the I PUC students had been called off due to Covid-19. The exams were scheduled later this month between July 16-27.

Kumar said the supplementary exams for I PUC students, scheduled for July 16-27, have been called off in view of COVID-19. The government had earlier decided to hold the supplementary exams at the colleges for 60,000 students. The students will now be directly promoted to the next class. However, those who have not taken up will not be given any concession.

If a student could not appear for the exam owing to ill health will be given one more chance before the commencement of II PUC classes.