Pune: Demand to cancel backlog exams, slash 25% syllabus

PUNE: Cancellation of backlog exams for non-final year students, a 25% reduction in the syllabus, a 50% fee cut, and low-cost meals like Shiv-Bhojan scheme on campuses were some demands put forth by students to higher and technical education minister Uday Samant who was at Savitribai Phule Pune University on Tuesday. The minister promised to look into their grievances.
“We have requested for a cancellation of backlog exams for non-final year students. In case they still decide to go ahead with the examination after 120 days as per the earlier notifications from the state as well as the university, we have appealed for these examinations to be taken in the multiple choice questions format instead of the regular pattern,” Kuldeep Ambekar, a law student, who runs an organisation called Students’ Helping Hands.
Students have demanded that colleges should give them a 50% concession in fees as parents are struggling .
Ambekar said, “Many colleges do not even have a proper e-learning portal that has been made available to the students, despite so many months since the pandemic. What we are trying to request from the university as well as the minister is to pass an order which does not allow colleges to collect fees on non-utilised heads such as parking, laboratory, library, mess and hostel at least for this semester.”