The postponed final semester exams of undergraduate and postgraduate courses will be held a month after the colleges and universities reopen following the withdrawal of the lockdown, education minister Partha Chatterjee said on Saturday.

“The final semester exams of all undergraduate and postgraduate courses will be held one month after the colleges and universities reopen. The universities have started the preparations to conduct the exams,” Chatterjee said after a meeting.

Affiliating universities such as Calcutta University will conduct the final or sixth semester exams of its undergraduate courses at home centres, an official of the education department said. Which means the students will write the test in their respective colleges.

This marks a break with the tradition because all undergraduate semester exams, conducted by the affiliating universities, are held at away centres.

In another shift, the last semester exams will be held in phases and on different sets of question papers, the official said. The test on a single paper will be held in two or three days.

If a college has 500 candidates, not all will write the test on the same day and on the same set of questions.

However, the individual universities will have the liberty to use any other procedure if they want to, the official said.

The decision was taken at a meeting education minister Chatterjee held on Saturday with the vice-chancellors of all universities and senior officials of the higher education department through video conference.

The state government had announced that all educational institutions in Bengal would remain closed till June 10 for the coronavirus outbreak.