BENGALURU: Demanding regularisation of their services, hundreds of guest lecturers from across the state, who arrived in the city from Tumakuru on Wednesday, continued their protest at Freedom Park on Thursday. With so many lecturers out of classes, colleges and universities are suffering. With examinations round the corner and the stress of completing the curriculum on a tight deadline, students and college administrations are left in a lurch.
The guest lecturers’ long stand-off with the state government will also affect the performance of students as colleges reportedly look at moving their examination dates if the situation persists and some have no idea how to work around this situation. Several student organisations also protested against the strike as a month has gone by without any classes being conducted in various government colleges.
“Since 50 days, no classes have taken place and we are struggling. The college announced exams for January 23, 2024, but not even half of our curriculum is completed. We are trying to prepare for the exams by watching online videos and learning from YouTube,” said Lokesh DV, a final-year commerce student.
L Gomathi Devi, Vice-Chancellor, Maharani Cluster Univeristy, said, “Around 140 guest lecturers teach at the university. So far, only 30-40 per cent of the curriculum has been completed. Though we announced the exam dates, the courses are not completed, so we will not go ahead with the examinations.”
The VC added that students in the commerce stream are the most affected. Most of the guest faculty members are needed for the commerce students and the university is facing a huge problem now. With Science and Arts, permanent teachers have pitched in and over 60 per cent of those curriculum has been completed.
Colleges affiliated with Bengaluru University (BU) are stuck in a similar situation. With 17 colleges under it, VC Jayakara Shetty M stated that they were facing some problems in addressing the concerns raised by colleges in completing the curriculum without enough lecturers. “If the protests are not called off, we are soon going to call a meeting with all the principals to decide the next course of action. At BU, most of the guest faculty members have been conducting their regular classes.”
At Nrupathunga University in Bengaluru, permanent lecturers have been sharing the load of guest lecturers. “We have completed 90 per cent of theory classes and might face postponement by a couple of days. Fortunately, we started the semester quite early. We are conducting extra classes to complete the remaining curriculum,” said Srinivas S Bali, Vice-Chancellor.