J&K students demand promotion sans exam

Tribune News Service
Faridkot, November 6

Demanding their promotion instead of conducting exams in wake of Covid, many nursing students on Friday staged a dharna in front of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) and blocked traffic on Faridkot-Sadiq road.

Most of the protesters belong to J&K and they are students of various paramedical courses in the nursing colleges of the state.

Saying their online study was affected during the lockdown due to poor internet connectivity in J&K, these students said they were not in a position in take the exam. They demanded general promotions on the pattern of other degree colleges.

However, the authorities in BFUHS said it was not the question of only some students from J&K, but there are over 30,000 other students who are enrolled in over 100 nursing colleges in the state.

The biggest challenge for medical and paramedical education is how to issue a pass degree to the students who are yet to write and clear their exam, said the authorities.

The nursing students are demanding relaxation on the pattern of other degree courses students. The students said if they could not be given general promotion, at least the exam must be postponed.

“We have got guidelines for our exam a few days back,” a student said. But the problem with the medical university is that there are over 30,000 students who will be affected with the postponement of the exam also.

The university needs to promote us to the next class without exams to balance out the irregularities of online teaching, said the protesting students.

The university authorities said that there was already many relaxations in skill and clinical procedures. Any student failing in subjects will be provisionally promoted to next year. However, such students will have to appear in the supplementary examination along with term examination whenever the examination is held next and clear the pending examination, said the authorities. The students have been informed well in advance about the conduct of examinations scheduled for next week and other related activities.