Utkal University (Photo | EPS)
BHUBANESWAR: Students of Government College of Art and Craft at Khallikote affiliated to Utkal University of Culture are a worried lot with the university announcing to conduct the pending semester and mid-semester examinations of Bachelor of Performing Art (BPA) and Bachelor of Visual Art (BVA) courses for the academic year 2020-24 together.
Both the courses are of four-year duration with each year having two semesters. The academic session of the college is already running behind the schedule by one year due to lack of faculty members and non-holding of classes during the pandemic (2020).
“In 2020, no online classes were held for most of the subjects due to lack of faculty members. Since the college reopened after lockdown, the existing assistant lecturers have been trying to complete the course and conduct exams haphazardly,” informed a group of students of the batch requesting anonymity. There are no lecturers in departments of applied art, Indian painting and ceramics in the college.
The university on Tuesday announced to start the second, fourth and sixth semester exams from Friday and complete them by April 20. It also notified conduct of mid-semester exams of third, fifth and seventh semester students from April 3 to 13.
“There is very little time to even prepare for the exams. The college authorities should at least postpone the mid-semester exams for now,” they added. Efforts to contact principal of the college Subrat Kumar Mullick did not yield any response.
