Students of the Distance Education Centre (DEC) of Berhampur University in Odisha for the 2016-18 session are a worried lot as the University Grants Commission (UGC) has not yet provided affiliation to their courses.
Around 5,000 students, including about 2,200 from postgraduate courses, are affected because of non-affiliation of their courses with the UGC. For the past 10 days, representatives of these students have been on dharna on the Berhampur University campus.
According to convener of the agitation by DEC students, Raj Abhishek Panda, through memorandums they have already informed about their problem to Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javedkar and the Odisha Governor, who happens to be chancellor of their university. A delegation of students had met Mr. Javedkar during his visit to Bhubaneswar.
Due to lack of UGC affiliation, Berhampur Universityhas had also stopped admissions to its DEC courses in 2017, said Postgraduate Council chairman of Berhampur University Devi Prasanna Patnaik.
Exams not held
Following protests by students, examinations of DEC courses for the 2016-18 session scheduled to be held in October were not held. The DEC has proposed that any student who was not satisfied may take back the money paid as fees and other payments. But the agitating students say it was not a solution as they have already spent more than a year of their valuable time on these courses.