BENGALURU: In a move affecting over 60,000 students across all semesters, the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, has postponed examinations of all semesters scheduled to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday following the demise of Minister for Cooperation H S Mahadeva Prasad. The sudden announcement caused lots of inconvenience to the students.
Following the state government declaring three days of mourning and government holiday on Tuesday, VTU was forced to postpone the exams scheduled for Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
But students feel that VTU should have gone ahead as per schedule as they had already prepared for the exams. “The university has an online question paper delivery system and the question of transportation does not arise. What was the need to postpone the exams?” asked a student.
However, the university authorities justified the action saying that they had to put off Wednesday’s schedule too as a holiday has been declared in Chamarajnagar district which has three engineering colleges.
Speaking to Express, vice-chancellor Dr Karisiddappa said, “ Three engineering colleges are located in Chamarajanagar district, the home district of the deceased minister. Since the district administration had announced a holiday for all educational institutions in the district on account of the last rites of Mahadeva Prasad on Wednesday, VTU postponed the examinations scheduled for the day.”
Since the same question paper is issued to all engineering colleges across the state, the university cannot have the same examination on two different dates, he said.
Fresh dates will be announced on Wednesday for the papers that have been put off. “The remainder of the schedule will be the same,” he explained.