Hyderabad: Thousands of students from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University’s (JNTU) are up in arms against the varsity’s move to conduct offline exams from tomorrow (July 2) in spite of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. JNTU’s announcement of exam schedules have put B.Tech and B.Pharmacy final year students in a pickle as they weren’t prepared for this announcement to come through.
Moreover, the social media outrage of students of the university makes it clear that they are embittered by this decision, to the point where one engineering student even threatened the government with suicide. The students have asked the government to either postpone or allow the students to graduate without writing exam, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
With experts already condemning the Telangana government’s move to do away with the lockdown completely, the announcement of exams by the JNTU administration with minimal time for preparation is adding to the anxiety of students unprepared for this predicament.
Jagruti (name changed), a student in her final year of B.Tech Computer Science is worried about being a carrier. “While I have received my first shot a couple of days ago, I am still not fully immune and might pass on the virus to my family members. I am still recovering from the weakness as a result of my first shot.”
Corroborating her story, Jayshree (name changed) another student pursuing her B.Tech added that “A week’s time for preparation is not sufficient time for us to cover a vast syllabus.”
Manzoor Hussain, the Registrar of JNTU, however remarked that there wasn’t enough cause for concern. “We have set up exam centers close to the residence and split the batches so that each center will not be crowded. Since everything is unlocked anyway, there is no reason to defer from holding the exams in offline mode.”
“We are all willing to write the exams if it is held online.” said Jayshree vehemently. However Mr. Hussain defended JNTU’s decision to go with exams and remarked, “Conducting exams online comes with the drawback of copying and other exam malpractices.”
“Considering Madhya Pradesh holds online exams, why is the Telangana government unwilling to do the same?” Venkat Baloor, the president of Congress’s student body, the National State Union of India (NSUI), asked. Balmoor also recounted the recent suicide of Sri Charan, a nineteen year old student of V.M.R Polytechnic who passed away on the twenty eight of this month.
“What if students being forced to write the exams resort to such drastic measures?” he demanded. This fear isn’t all that unfounded especially since students of JNTU-H tweeted to state IT Minister KT Rama Rao threatening to commit suicide if the government refused to rescind the call for exams.
A Public Interest Litigation is due to be filed in the coming days by Venkat Balmoor against the conducting of all exams in offline mode across the state of Telangana. As per the schedule, JNTU’s exams are to commence from July.