The students of Sikkim Central University of different departments of Fourth semester Post Graduation have wrote a letter to the Vice Chancellor requesting the University to re think on its decision of conducting an offline classes.
Sikkim University after span of two years SU took a decision to resume offline classes starting June 13 for fourth semester (PG) and sixth Semester (UG)
The notification issued by University management on June 3 reads, “Pursuant to the meeting held on 01.06.2022, the University has taken some decisions keeping in view the current COVID-19 situation for reopening of departments and hostels in the University. All students belonging to terminal semester (ie. 4th/6th semesters as the case may bej shall attend offline classes in their respective departments from 13.06.2022”
242 students from PG wrote a letter of request to the Vice Chancellor, Avinash Khare requesting to conducting an online classes for the fourth semester.
The letter reads
- In the fourth semester, we are having dissertation to complete within the month of June only, and
as we attended online classes, field trip, data collection, data compilation etc are being done by us
only. So, having only not even 30 days in hand, completing the dissertation won’t be possible if we
stop our dissertation work now and for attending offline classes, we start looking for rent house,
paying guest house, then start arranging financial support for staying for two months in Gangtok. So,
these will be tremendous burden to us, which we don’t want to entertain at any cost now. - We have selected our NET examination’s centre based on our current location of our our residence,
our hometown, and all of a sudden it will be difficult for us to keep travelling for now from our
hometown to Gangtok, then from Gangtok to our NET examination centre and again back to Gangtok.
Our dissertation work, preparation for semester examination, preparation for NET examination, all
will be hampered. - So many universities such as JNU, Jamia Milia, BHU as well as other state universities also, are going
to conduct their entrance test for Ph.D by the months of June and July, as their masters degree
programme are going to be completed by now only. Whereas in Sikkim University, we are having our
Masters extended upto the month of even August. So it will be difficult for us to attend the Ph.D
entrance examinations of other universities, if we start residing at Gangtok and start attending offline
classes. - Most of the rent houses in Sikkim are asking the rent of six months in advance to provide the rental
agreement, whereas we have only 45 working days left to complete our Masters. So getting rent
houses and paying guest houses become an additional burden for us. In this case, the university must
take responsibility to arrange accommodation for each and every student, so that we can concentrate
on our dissertation work, NET preparation, semester examination’s preparation etc. - Many of the faculties have being said the decision of conducting offline classes for the 4th semester
students are being taken by discussing with Sikkim University Students Association only. Here, I would
like to highlight that the present SUSA body is not even democratically elected by the students; the
last SUSA body where Mahesh Rai was the President was the democratically elected by students. So,
after their resignation and an ADHOC body of SUSA was formed, which is not democratically elected
by the students at all. None of the SUSA representatives from the current ADHOC body have contacted
any of our classmates in my department, asking our conveniences or inconveniences. So, how can
SUSA’s decision be the collective decision of the students of the 4th semester - We want to highlight one more factor which is extremely personal i.e., during COVID days my
parents have developed dependencies on me. Some of us have been working part time to support
my family since the mid 2020. So, all of a sudden, it’s not even possible to leave our house, because
this will cause a financial chaos in our family. And this scenario is common in many of the students
home right now
Speaking with Sikkim Chronicle, a PG student from Assam said, “Most of the students are from outside the state and since the roads are affected by landslides here at Assam and also with tourist season it has become very difficult to get bus and railway tickets. Also We have selected our NET examination centre here at our hometown and it will be very difficult to travel”
She further said. “Our PG course will finish by July 24 and just for 42 days they are calling us to take offline classes. It will take fourty to sixty thousand of expenses “
” The students who wanted classes to be offline was from second semester not us, there has been complete miscommunication between students and SUSA body.”
“SUSA body also didn’t consult with us and we are dissatisfied with them” she concluded
Another student added ” We were called all of a sudden, even our own head of the department didn’t informed us about any meetings. It’s very difficult to arrange and go back to Sikkim to attend classes and on top of that we have NET examination here”
A student from Mass Communication Department wrote to Sikkim Chronicle, stating the decision to open offline classes to be ‘unfair’.
“Decision to suddenly resume offline classes was taken without consulting any one from the fourth semester. We have only 45 days left for the session to end. Within that we have to submit our dissertation work . Many students are outside of Sikkim and without thinking of them the University has decided to start offline classes which is unfair. Is it possible to travel to Sikkim and take a rented room for just 45 days ?”
Vice Chancellor of Sikkim University, Avinash Khare denied to comment on the matter.