Engineering students across Karnataka have opposed the government’s claim that 79% of portions have been completed in the state’s higher education institutions. They have been demanding exams be scrapped, stating online learning has been ineffective and irregular in their colleges.
After a review meeting of the higher education department, chief minister BS Yediyurappa On Tuesday tweeted on the government’s initiative in the e-learning space. The post quotes the CM as saying that 79% of the portions have been completed and asking officials to complete the rest by May 31. It stressed on the importance of online education and said 30,000 online classes have been conducted ever since the lockdown came into force.
Engineering students say the CM has been fed false information by the department. “Around 30% of the portions were over before the lockdown. My college didn’t have any online class as we were aware of the network issues. Now, they send us PDFs and links and have asked us to selfstudy, which isn’t possible as these are technical subjects,” said Venkatesh Kamath, an engineering student from a Mangaluru college.
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“We had a few days of offline classes before lockdown and didn’t have any online class until May 10 when the higher education minister said portions had to be completed by May-end. All of a sudden, online classes started and three modules were completed in two weeks. But we haven’t understood the subjects. Also, students from rural areas couldn’t attend live lectures,” said Dhyan Sagar, an engineering student in Mysuru.
Jhanavi C, a third-year student in a Bengaluru college, had a different story to narrate: “We used to have online classes every day, but later they stopped as we said we weren’t understanding the concepts. Also, the teachers stopped taking classes as a form of protest for not getting their salaries.”
Students are increasingly voicing their concerns on social media. They have also written to All India Council of Technical Education and University Grants Commission. The AICTE chairman replied saying it’s up to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), the umbrella varsity for most engineering colleges in the state, to take a call.
Courtesy: TOI
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