BANGALORE: As a last minute effort to avert a potential revolt by a section of the students that opposed the inclusion of caste on the II PUC admission tickets, officials at the Department of PU Education have instructed colleges to apply whiteners on the caste column during the ten minutes of grace time before the start of the examination.
“We have directed all the colleges to remove the mention of caste on the admission tickets by applying whiteners before the examination. If they are unable to cover all of them, students can do it themselves,” said Uma Basavanappa, Deputy Director of PU Education (DDPU)- South.
This decision was taken after a state-level meeting of DDPUs was convened by Commissioner of PU Education. Many students had alleged that the mention of caste could influence leniency from the invigilator, for candidates belonging to his/her caste.
Colleges in the city are seeing this as extra work, besides all the preparation for the final examination. “This is an additional work for us. I have instructed the invigilators to apply whiteners. While the idea was to collect details from students for use during CET, I don’t know why caste made it on the admission tickets,” said B R Chandrashekharappa, principal, Surana PU College.
Dr B T Venkatesh, Director - PU Programmes at Jain PU College said, “We received the admission tickets before the controversy broke out. We will follow the directive from the PU board.”