Kuvempu University’s decision to promote students of the Distance Education Directorate without examination has attracted severe criticism from the teaching faculty and members of the Syndicate. While the Kuvempu University Teachers’ Association (KUTA) has registered its opposition to the move with the Registrar of the university, members of the Syndicate have complained to the Governor, who is Chancellor of the university.
Citing COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the academic programme, Vice-Chancellor B.P. Veerabhadrappa on February 7 issued a notification to promote students — those who had taken admission for graduation and post-graduation courses in the academic year 2019-20 — without any examination. They were given marks considering the assignments they were asked to submit. The university declared the results of 14,141 such students. However, the results of 2,007 students had been held back for “specific reasons”. The Directorate of Distance Education of the university offers BA, B.Sc, B.Lib, MA, M.Sc, and MBA courses.
The Vice-Chancellor, in a press release, said he had powers to take such a decision as per Rule 15(5) of the Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000. “In the interest of students and to avoid incidents of suicide among them, they have been promoted without examination,” he said. Further, he said that the assignments submitted by the students were evaluated as answer scripts of regular students were evaluated.
KUTA opposes
The office-bearers of the KUTA, on Friday, met Anuradha G., Registrar (Administration), and submitted a memorandum, appealing her to take proper action with regard to promoting students based on their performance in the assignments.
H.S. Bhojya Naik, senior professor and president of the KUTA, told The Hindu that promoting students without a proper examination was an “unacademic” move. It could harm the reputation of the university, besides affecting the students’ future.
“They were asked to submit assignments for 10 marks in the case of Science students and 15 marks in the case of Social Science students. Now, whatever scores they secured for their assignments is being adjusted to 100. By this method, each student would secure above 80% of marks. The regular students of the university, who faced regular examination, could hardly get the score as high as the students of distance education cell could get. The regular students will suffer from this,” he said.
Earlier, the university had announced a timetable for the examination in December 2021. However, a few students moved the High Court challenging the examination notification. Even as the matter is pending in court, the Vice-Chancellor had taken this move. The KUTA argued that the Vice-Chancellor’s decision was against the law.
Besides that, members of the academic council and the Syndicate recently met Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot and submitted a memorandum requesting him to take action in this regard.
