In a candid confession amid the BEd crisis, Bangalore University (BU) Vice-Chancellor B Thimme Gowda said he had become a scapegoat of mistakes made by his predecessors.
“Someone has to become the bogeyman to put an end to this mess. It has to be me and I have to bear with it. The university (authorities) should have taken a bold decision in December when the issue was raised. I took charge in February and needed time to understand the issue. Now, students are the victims,” Prof Gowda told reporters on Monday.
“We have made some mistakes, but we are determined to clean up the system from now.”
Many ‘ineligible’ students were not allowed the take the first semester Education in Emerging India examination on Monday, with the VC himself visiting four exam centres and verifying admission registers of BEd colleges. “I found missing dates of admissions and signatures of candidates. We unceremoniously denied such colleges and students from writing the exam,” he said.
Prof Gowda informed that the government has given a conditional affiliation to 47 colleges in the dock based on an undertaking that they have fulfilled all academic requirements.
In BES Degree College (Jayanagar), which has four colleges attached, only 387 candidates out of about 587 took the exam, said principal S M Shambulinge Gowda. As many as 5,490 candidates are registered for the exams that will end on June 18.
The exam was delayed in some centres on Monday owing to confusion regarding admission approvals. The principals of Sri Sarvajna College, Vijayanagar and Oxford College, J P Nagar, have written to the VC that they find it difficult to conduct the exams given the irregularities in admission registers of attached colleges.
Some genuine students of St Paul’s College and Kala Niketan College withdrew from taking the exams.