During this pandemic where majority of countries have cancelled the exams for student’s betterment, there are some demands of the students as Indian government has not cancelled everyone’s exams.
Protests were held across the country on Monday demanding the revocation of all examinations and promotion of students. Along with this, students also showed up their protest on social media platforms. For this, the students spoke on Twitter with the hashtag #PromoteStudentsWithoutExams.
All the student organizations including AISA, SFI, KYS, socialist Student Assembly, AIDSO, participated in this protest. The students were also imprisoned by the police in Uttar Pradesh, including Delhi. Although after some time the protesters were released but they accused the police of misconduct.
Similarly, the students who were protesting in the capital of Uttar Pradesh were also detained by the police and took them in a bus. After this incident, all the student organizations condemned it and said that the government was also taking away the right of students to protest. All the students clearly said that in this global pandemic it is wrong and harmful to take examinations online or offline and they oppose it.
In this nationwide demonstration on Monday, the students demanded for three things which are:
- Cancel online exams happening in the center of this pandemic. Stop the examinations on campus, endangering the lives of all students and teachers.
- Promote all students on the basis of previous semester marks or internal assessment.
- For last year students, appropriate measures should be taken after consulting them.
Due to this Covid-19 pandemic, many educational institutes of the country have not been able to complete the examinations. That is why online exams are being talked about in many states and in central universities. Describing it as discrimination, both teachers and students are opposing it.
State President of Delhi ASFI, Sumit Kataria said that this decision of universities is not only absolute but also impractical. According to Sumit Kataria, Even today, where the network is so bad in many places of our country that you cannot talk on the phone, how can you do the exam online? With this, a large proportion of students who do not have the means to get online education or to take exams such as smart mobiles or laptops, then how will those students do the exam?
He added that the biggest problem is that this epidemic and lockdown has affected the minds of the people. During this time the students could not focus on their studies. Along with this, the topics of many subjects are also not completed. The student is not yet in a mental state to give exams. Therefore all students should be promoted without any exams.
Sumit said that there are demonstrations all over the country. There have been many protests in Delhi too. Along with this, the students protested through a hashtag on a virtual platform but the government and university administration is not paying attention to the students’ demand.
“Are final year students not a part of the student community? Are they not subjected to structural inequalities of caste, class, gender and region based digital divide? Then why exams for them?”
If Maharashtra can… Then why not Haryana?? Please don’t risk our lives!!
Promote final year students without examination!!
HARYANA has decided to conduct the examination of final year only, can they explain the logic behind this?? No proper teaching was done. Merely sharing the photos from book and book itself is in no way a teaching.
Even after the online examination call being rejected by the majority of students and teachers, DU;s firmness on its position to conduct online examination is nothing but a proof of how heartless the administration has become.
An arbitrary order was circulated declaring an online exam for final year students. Why no dialogue between the HRD ministry, teachers and students?
It was not long that we saw NEP. The New Education Policy was indeed the New Exclusionary Policy. Conducting online exams seems a step in the same regards. Students reject this step.” These are some of the tweets done by the students or the teachers demanding the cancelation of exams.
He also said that we want to tell the government clearly that they should stop their anti-student attitude, otherwise the students will intensify their movement. Only the government will be responsible for this.
An online poll was also conducted by the Delhi university teachers association (DUTA) on the online open book exam. 90% of the students participating in this poll said that they are not ready for any kind of examination yet. 51,452 students took part in this survey.
The survey also stated that 74% of the students are dependent on smartphones and conducting exams on smartphones is not a good option. Similarly, 46.6% of students avail of 4G internet services, while 10.9% of students are dependent on older 2G services.
Students from Jammu and Kashmir said that the unpredictable conditions in the troubled region are not favorable for taking the exam. While about 7% of the students do not use the internet at all. 80.5% of the students say that they are unable to concentrate on their studies at home during lockdown.
However, the majority of the universities have canceled all the exams except the final year. Many states have even canceled final year exams at their universities. On Monday, Tamil Nadu Central University in Pondicherry, Maharashtra also canceled exams for all students.
Student organizations have demanded that if the majority of universities have cancelled the exams then why the rest of the university can’t do the same.
The national president of all India student association (AISA), Sai Balaji, said that the basis of the exam is how much you learned in your class, but when students could not take the class, especially online class, then what is the rationale of this exam? He further said that the government should take this anti-student step back for the betterment of students and teachers.
