Their long journey from Afghanistan was not an easy one for students who are here at the Calicut University to study various courses but the journey back is proving even more difficult.
A handful of students from the country are trapped in Kerala thanks to the delay in publishing the results of their final year examinations and granting them provisional certificates so that they can continue their education elsewhere.
There are more than 80 Afghan students in the Calicut University and nearly all of them are here on scholarships provided by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
“Most of the students are dependent on the scholarship for finance but it expires with the course. Because of a delay in publishing results, many students have to stay back for over an year and spend out of their own pockets to do so. I will likely have the same fate as I have reached my final year but even my third semester results were not published,” said Wais Ashna, an Afghan student in the city.
He added that this problem was limited to Calicut University as his friends studying in other cities had no problem finishing their courses on time.
The delay in publishing results has also seen many of them lose out on opportunities to work somewhere or to go to another country.
Most universities have a July-August deadline to apply for postgraduate courses and most Indian students often make it at the last minute.
Afghan students though are not so lucky as most of them need scholarships to pay for the studies and their application process starts a couple of months earlier.
And the fact that their compatriots studying in other universities are able to present their certificates in time is leaving students of the Calicut University at a disadvantage.
Mohammad Noween who just finished his B.Com course at the Farooq College is now making everyday visits to the University in hope of getting a provisional certificate.
“I have an opportunity to get a scholarship to study further in Germany. But I need to submit the necessary certificates back home to be eligible for it. Since I am not going to get the course certificates any time soon, I applied for a provisional certificate and I am going in and out of the university daily to get it. I may still get the scholarship I succeed in getting the certificates there in time, but my chances of getting it has gone down from 100 per cent to 50 per cent,” he said.Calicut University Pro-Vice Chancellor K Raveendranath said that the students would not have to face the problem next year onwards.
“This year, we were going to publish the results in May but a few papers went missing and prevented us from doing so. As an interim measure, we have fast tracked the papers of students from Afghanistan and are providing them with confidential results at the earliest. However official certificates can only be given to them when the full results are published,” he said.