The Bengal higher education department has told universities that final-year students will be assessed in their terminal examination by factoring in 80 per cent “on the basis of best aggregate percentage obtained by the candidate in any of the previous semester/year’s results and 20 per cent on the internal semester during the current semester/year”.

The advisory, issued on Saturday evening and circulated among vice-chancellors, says in case of an undergraduate student, the best aggregate in the last five semesters has to be considered.

“In case of a postgraduate student, the best aggregate in the last three semesters has to be considered,” said an official.

The universities have been asked to declare the “final year/semester results preferably within July 31”.

If a student wishes to appear in a formal examination instead of the alternative method as has been spelt out in the advisory, he or she will be given an opportunity to apply for the exam through a process to be notified by the university concerned, another official said. “However, the exam should be conducted only after the situation gets normal and the result of the special exam may be published within one month of the exam,” he said.

The advisory has prompted Jadavpur University to convene a meeting of its examination board next week.

In engineering, the university had announced on June 12 that students would be assessed factoring in 30 per cent weightage from the previous semester (best aggregate) and the rest through internal assessment (home assignment).

In arts, one of the two assessment parameters had said students would be graded factoring in 60 per cent weightage from the previous semester (best aggregate) and the rest through internal assessment (home assignment).

Pradip Ghosh, a JU pro-VC, said: “We have got the advisory and the university will take steps it deems necessary.”

The department has said that the students for the intermediate semesters/years would be promoted to the next semester/year.