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Move amid non-availability of hostels, transport facility agitates students
Srinagar: The Central University of Kashmir (CUK) has scheduled offline exams of the students of various departments amid non-availability of hostel and transport facilities for the students.
The move has agitated the students who have opposed the decision to hold offline exams without providing basic facilities to the students.
A group of CUK students Monday staged a protest at Press Enclave in Srinagar to oppose the university’s decision.
“We are deprived of basic facilities by the university but at the same time we are forced to appear in offline exams without hostel accommodation and transport facility,” said Nadiya Rashid, a law student of CUK.
She said that the CUK has a number of students coming from far-flung areas of different districts while some students enrolled in the varsity were outside J&K students.
“We approached the university administration a number of times only to get false assurances from them,” Rashid said.
The university had earlier hired a private building to use it as a hostel for the students.
However, the building was later taken over by the district administration to use it for other purposes.
“As the university is adamant at conducting offline exams on the campus, we tried to rent rooms in the Ganderbal locality but the locals are charging huge amounts which is not affordable for the students,” the students said.
Greater Kashmir earlier reported about the students’ grievance wherein they demanded their exams be conducted through online mode.
The university authorities had claimed to set up exam centres in different districts for the convenience of the students.
“We raised the same demand that we should be provided examination centres at our respective districts but the university is making only false claims,” Rashid said.
The students said they would approach Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to get their issue resolved.
As earlier reported by Greater Kashmir, the CUK 2nd semester MBA students batch 2020 complained that the varsity was holding their exams through offline mode.
The students submitted a representation to the Registrar CUK and demanded that their exams be held online instead of offline mode.
The aggrieved students said that their counterparts studying at the University of Kashmir (KU), IUST, SSM College, Cluster University Srinagar and SKUAST-K were writing their exams through online mode which was in light of the prevailing situations.
Meanwhile, the students complained that holding exams through offline mode was a violation of the UGC guidelines.
“The university does not provide a student-friendly environment with regard to academics as is endeavoured by all the professional universities of Kashmir and across the country,” a student said.
Vice Chancellor (VC) CUK Prof Mehrajuddin Mir told Greater Kashmir that a small number of students were trying to make an issue of holding offline exams.
“Our offline exams are in progress but we have made arrangements for logistic support for those students who live in far-flung areas,” he said.
The VC said that they had asked the concerned heads of the departments to submit the list of the students living in far-off areas.
“Depending on the number of students, we will set up exam centres in their districts and also make arrangements of transport facilities,” he said.
However, Prof Mir admitted that the university was facing difficulties due to non-availability of hostel accommodation for the students.
“We had a private hostel building for students but that has been taken by the district administration due to which we are facing difficulties to accommodate students,” he said.
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