AKTU students resort to protest again
LUCKNOW : Hundreds of students of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), Lucknow, again hit the streets on Friday demanding online exams following rise in number of Omicron cases in the state that prompted the government to impose night curfew between 11pm to 5am from December 25 onwards.
“We are all determined to stage a protest against the university administration braving the winter chill on the street. At a time when the night curfew has been imposed by Uttar Pradesh government across the state, university wants to hold exam wherein four lakh students are required to come to write offline exam,” Pawan Bhadana, one of the protesters who is leading the students’ agitation by staging road blockages in Lucknow, was heard as saying in a video.
When contacted, university administration said they were going ahead with the offline exams from December 28. They alleged that Pawan Bhadana graduated from AKTU in 2012. “Pawan is no more a student of AKTU and he is unnecessarily trying to mislead students,” an official said. The university also shared documents to establish that Bhadana was not an AKTU student anymore.
AKTU vice chancellor Prof Vineet Kansal had on Wednesday directed the affiliated institutes to ensure smooth conduct of offline examinations starting December 28. “The odd semester exams of the third and fourth years of graduation and the final year of PG courses will start in offline mode from December 28. The affiliated institutes have been instructed to resolve problems of the students at the earliest so that there is no disturbance in their study and teaching,” Prof Kansal said.
The VC also directed the institutions to ensure that Covid protocols were followed during the examinations. He advised students to keep in touch with the institute to solve any problem related to studies. Also, if any problem related to educational activity is not resolved at the institute level, students may post their problems on the university’s online grievance portal.