300 college students protest against proposed exams

Around 300 students of Government Girls College in Sector 14 on Saturday took out a march to protest against the university administration’s purported plans to conduct

Around 300 students of Government Girls College in Sector 14 on Saturday took out a march to protest against the university administration’s purported plans to conduct the second-semester exams from January. After gathering in front of the college around 11am, students moved further ahead and reached the city bus stop, where they raised slogans against the university administration.

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In June last year, the higher education department had said that first and second-year students will be promoted to the next semester without any exam and on the basis of marks obtained in internal assessment and previous examinations. However, students, who were promoted to the third semester, said they were told on Thursday that the second-semester exams would be conducted in January. Most students said that they were not in favour of holding second-semester exams since the syllabus couldn’t be completed due to the pandemic. They also said that the announcement had come at such a short notice that it would be difficult to handle third-semester studies along with second-semester exams.

Soni Sharma, who was among the protesting students, said, “Our second semester was disrupted due to Covid-19 and we did not complete the syllabus. The semester exams did not take place and we were promoted to the third semester. However, we are now being told that second-semester exams will take place in January in 10 days. How can we be tested when the syllabus was not completed properly and we are busy with the third-semester studies? We have so many papers and science subjects are particularly difficult,” said Sharma, a BSc student. She said that students had received information about the conduct of classes only on Thursday.

Sonia, another third-semester student, said that the matter was discussed with the principal on Thursday but nothing conclusive came out of it after which students decided to protest on Saturday. “Most students are not in favour of exams. If students in other universities can be promoted, why can’t the same mechanism apply to us? Ideally, third-semester exams should be conducted now. We can’t handle third-semester studies along with second-semester exams with so much syllabus left to cover,” said Sonia.

She said that exams for the second semester did not make sense since the semester had been disrupted due to various factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic. “We did not have classes for the most part in January 2020 since our results were declared late. Only limited classes took place in February due to which the syllabus couldn’t be covered and later the pandemic struck in March. How can we be expected to take exams for a semester where the syllabus was not completed?” said Sonia.

Markanday Ahuja, vice-chancellor of Gurugram University which is responsible for conducting exams for students, said that students were agitating unnecessarily and no examination date sheet had been prepared. “No date-sheet has been made till now. We have simply called a meeting of college principals to explore the possibility of conducting exams since the government has said that exams need to be taken. The UGC has also made a recommendation,” said Ahuja.

He said that college principals had been asked to take feedback from students for a preferable time for exams but students had reacted unnecessarily. “We are simply trying to explore the possibility of holding exams, whether exams should be conducted during the third semester or later,” said Ahuja. He said that a follow-up meeting was due for Monday where further decisions in this regard will be taken.

Protesting students said that they had been assured that they would get to be a part of the discussions scheduled to take place on Monday after which they’d decide the next course of action.