Kerala: 2 Students Who Attended KEAM Exam Test Positive For Covid-19; Fresh Concerns Over Holding Exams

Two students in Kerala who had appeared for the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) entrance examination on July 16, have tested positive for the coronavirus. Are academic boards and institutes putting students' lives at risk by conducting exams during the pandemic?

Students at the KEAM entrance examination held in different centres in Kerala and other cities on July 16.

New Delhi: Two students who appeared for the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) entrance examination at two different exam centres in Thiruvananthapuram have tested positive for Covid 19. According to a report by Malayalam Manorama, the students came from different parts of the capital city which is the epicentre of the infection in the state. While one of the students is from Pozhiyoor and had given the exam at Thycaud centre, the other student is from Karakulam and had written the exam at the Karamana centre. The exam was held last week on July 16 and over 1.03 lakh students had appeared for the exams. There were about 343 exam centres spread across the state and in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Dubai. After the exams, there were reports of crowding and lack of social distancing from some of the centres. A New Indian Express report stated that there was a huge crowd of parents and students outside the exam centre in Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. Even the Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor also criticised the government for crowding at the centre. In his Facebook post he had written ‘KEAM2020 have made a mockery of the social distancing norms. A government that wants to combat COVID-19 would not be foolish enough to persist with these exams.’

This crowd of students crowding to enter an exam centre for #KEAM2020 have made a mockery of the social distancing... Posted by Shashi Tharoor on Thursday, July 16, 2020

Does #StudentsLifeMatter? Ever since the coronavirus outbreak, students have been opposing exams fearing for their safety. The voice got stronger after the University Grants Commission (UGC) brought out the new guidelines for final year university exams earlier this month which made it mandatory for varieties to conduct undergraduate and postgraduate exams using any mode online, offline or a mix of both. The UGC Secretary Prof Rajnish Jain had said that while the safety of students is their prime concern but conducting final year exams is also important. Students continue to retaliate the decision and had even taken to Twitter to share their opinion under the hashtag #StudentsLifeMatter. Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan opposed UGC guidelines to conduct the examinations. Punjab government had even written to the Centre to reconsider the decision. But UGC is adamant and in a recent report had said that out of the 640 universities, 454 universities have either conducted the examination or are planning to conduct. While several schools and university exams have been conducted successfully, the recent case raises the question if exams are putting students at risk.