Bengaluru: Students who are COVID-19 positive but are asymptomatic will be allowed to write the Common Entrance Test (CET) scheduled on July 30 and 31. 

According to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare for CET, space should be allotted for students who have tested positive. Such students will have to be transported to and from the exam centre in an ambulance. 

The SOP that was issued yesterday says that candidates with COVID-19 “shall provide a risk consent certificate for taking up the exam.” The SOP also says “they shall inform about their status to the authorities concerned in advance to make the necessary arrangements.”

A senior official from the Department said, “If a student is COVID-19 positive and asymptomatic, then that student can be allowed to write the exam. But he will have to get a certificate from a Medical Officer or a treating Physician that he is fit to write the exam.”

The official also said that such students can be allowed to write the exam in a space created for them. A medical team and an ambulance should be stationed outside such centres.

The Standard Operating Procedure also says that no examination centre should be located in Containment Zones and students coming from Containment Zones and those suffering from cold, fever and cough should be allowed to take the exam in a “special room”. One additional exam centre at the district- level and four in Bengaluru will be kept as reserved centres. It mandates a maximum of 24 students in a class with six feet distance between benches. It states that students should be informed earlier itself about their classrooms and seating allotments.

“One health checking unit for every 200 students should be set up at the centres that should be operational by 8 am for compulsory thermal scanning and adequate precautionary measures should be taken to ensure students and invigilators compulsorily wear masks and sanitise their hands regularly,” it states.

The Standard Operating Procedure also says that the examination centres should be sanitised with chemical disinfectants before and after the exam and that authorities should ensure that students or parents do not stand in groups before or after the exam near the centres.