Aiming to start the academic session from second week of August, the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLU) decided to go ahead with the MCQ format for Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2021) LLM entrance exam.
In January this year, the Consortium had restored the descriptive section in the LLM admission test but dropped the idea after second wave of Covid-19 pandemic delayed the examination schedule.
“The decision has been taken to ensure timely evaluation of paper and subsequent declaration of result on time and start academic session by the second week of August.
Evaluation of MCQ format takes much less time as compared to descriptive session as it is not computerized,” explains Faizan Mustafa, president, Consortium of National Law Universities and vice chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
Congratulations!You have successfully cast your voteLogin to view resultVijender Kumar, vice chancellor, Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur, and convenor, CLAT 2021 says that LLM is a one-year programme and delaying the result will hamper the academic cycle.
Other than this, increased number of exam centres, Covid safety kits for students, sealed examination material, separate room for candidates with mild Covid infections are among other safety precautions that will be implemented by the Consortium while conducting CLAT 2021 on July 23 in offline mode.
Last year CLAT was conducted in centre-based online mode.
“In order to ensure social distancing during the exam the Consortium has decided to increase exam centres this year.
Each centre will not accommodate more than 50% of its capacity,” says Kumar.
Consortium is considering increasing exam cities from 67 in 2020 to more than 200 this year.
“Increase in number of cities hosting the exam will help students to minimize the travel,” says Kumar.
It is expected that around 70,000 students would be writing CLAT 2021, which is almost the same as it was in 2020.
“The increased exam centres will help us as far as possible to accommodate maximum number of candidates to their first or second preferred choices.
To help aspirants, avoid long distance travel, they have been given a chance to revisit their preference of test centre after last date of submission of filled-in-application,” Kumar adds.
Sealed exam materialCandidates appearing for the exam, says Kumar will be given sealed test material on their desk.
“The move is aimed to avoid the risk of getting contacted with others.
For CLAT 2021, Consortium favoured for pen-paper mode to better maintain social distancing at the exam centre as compared centre-based online exam.
In most cases, service provider agencies are not willing to leave their alternate computers remain unused during the exam,” he adds.
Separate room for infected candidatesTo give an equal opportunity to all students, the Consortium has planned to arrange separate room for candidates with mild infection.
“We have planned to offer special room for such candidates, if local administration allows them to travel to the exam centre,” says CLAT 2021 Convenor.