Students up in arms against College authorities decision to hold offline exams

The Students, and Parents of students pursuing their technical education with Visvesvaraya Technological University, Karnataka (VTU) have accused the colleges of coercing the students to attend offline classes and appear for offline mode of examination for all subjects.

"Students are told to either write the exams in an offline mode in the month of January 2021 or that they can pile up their exams for later and then write many exams together. Telling a student to either write the exam offline

risking his/ her life now or some time later in an unmentioned future thereby extending his/her academic tenure and forcing a student to take up the herculean

task of writing many semester exams together is highly unfair and unjust to the student and is coercing the student to risk his/ her life and write an offline exam now," the letter written to the authorities said.

Circulars put out by colleges of VTU such as Bangalore Institute of Technology have also gone on to expressly mention that any consequence and responsibility of not writing an offline exam will be on the students alone.

The students have accused several private engineering colleges of lack of transparency. In the absence of a transparent approach, the students have conducted an online survey to find out what the majority of stakeholders want.

"According to this survey which received thousands of

responses, it was proven that 97.1% of students wanted online exams and not offline exams. This information has also been sent to the University. However, the University has again turned a blind eye to this," the students mention in the letter.

Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, New Horizon College of Engineering,BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore Institute of Technology, M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology and even the campus college of VTU in Belgaum have been accused of violating the guidelines and now allowing students to undergo 14-day quarantine period.

"In BMS College of Engineering, one hostel has been sealed off by the hostel secretary Dr. Vardhaman S.M. and over 16 students and 4 mess faculties have been tested COVID-19 Positive. Students were forcefully put in hostels with sharing rooms. Students are being mistreated and no student or parent are given any official information regarding this. This has truly become a very horrifying

experience that students are having to face and every student and parents are living with fear for their life everyday. The BMS College of Engineering management and VTU are doing their level best to hide all these facts," the letter accuses the college.

A girl named Jayshree (named changed) from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology was tested positive for COVID-19 and none of her friends have been tested yet and are being made to attend classes regularly.

At Ramaiah the students have erupted in protest. The college authorities, however, quote the VTU guidelines of holding the examinations in an offline mode.