Several students of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH) have boycotted the online classes of their current semester. Students allege that the university is conducting exams despite the University of Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines stating that students should be evaluated based on their internal marks for all inter-semester students.
While JNTUH is conducting the final exams for the previous semesters for all students, some autonomous colleges affiliated to the university are conducting internal exams for the current semester.
The students have been boycotting the classes since September 25. After logging in, students inform the class to “boycott the exams in the pandemic” and then log off. Several students have not been attending the classes and some private institutes are recording zero attendance.
It is not at all fair....As a student who is listeing and learning 2nd year from two months...now howcan we go back and write 1 year exam it is so unfair. Nits IITs every where the students are promoted . It's so unfair
— Aravind Goud (@Aravind63186521) September 26, 2020
Speaking to The News Minute, Ganesh, a final-year student, pointed out that even central technical institutions like NITs (National Institute of Technology) and IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) have also evaluated students based on the marks from the previous internal assessments, while JNTUH is going ahead with the exams for the inter-semester students.
“We have now entered the second semester for the final year and the online classes are going on. This is one crucial phase where we have project works, placements, final semester exams and this is our last opportunity to clear our backlogs too. For some colleges under the University, even the internal exams (mid-exams) schedule has been released and the exams in various (online and offline) modes are starting from September 29 for the current semester. How are we supposed to write exams for the previous semester now,” added Ganesh.
Govt promoted all students and nowuniversitieswantto conduct, We believe in a peaceful protest of not joining the online classes#boycottonlineclasses#canceljntuhexams @ktrtrs @sabithaindratrs @telanganaCMO @trspartyonline@KTRoffice @AICTE_INDIA
— Ganesh against universities (@canceljntuexam) September 26, 2020
The students are also planning to conduct a Digital Candle March, depending on the response from the administration.
Another student Rakesh* said, “If all the semester students are writing this exam, the number of students would significantly increase, so is the chance of spreading coronavirus. If we go and write an exam, we are putting our entire family at risk and most of them have senior citizens at home. When there is a clear option by UGC to assess students based on internal marks, why is JNTUH not following the same?”
Students said that they do not want to continue preparing for two semesters parallelly, they want only one semester to happen at a time. Meanwhile, the semester end exams are starting in the last week of October for various courses.
When TNM tried contacting the university, there was no response from their side.