Indore: Giving in to protest by student leaders, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) on Tuesday decided to provide masks to students of its teaching departments coming to take exams.
After finalising dates for UG final year and PG final semester exams for college students, vice chancellor Prof Renu Jain held a meeting with heads of university teaching departments for exams of UTD students.
The meeting decided to hold UG and PG final semester students exams from July 6 with all safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The VC agreed to a proposal that masks would be provided to students coming to the UTD campus for exams.
“The students are expected to come to the campus wearing masks. If they don’t have it, the university will provide masks to students,” said DAVV media in-charge Chandan Gupta.
He stated that the VC directed HoDs to maintain stock of masks so that no student is without the protective gear during exams.
Instructions were also given to ensure that there is enough space in departments for maintaining social distancing among the examinees.
“If there is space constraint, building of other departments will be used,” Gupta said.
It is to be noted that the university previously had decided that it would provide masks and gloves to teaching and non-teaching staff but not to students coming to the campus for writing exams.
This move had led to protest by students’ leaders including Youth Congress activists Abhijeet Pandey and NSUI activist Vikas Nandwana.
“We had registered our protest with registrar Anil Sharma and heads of teaching departments. Eventually, good sense prevailed,” the duo leader stated.
Pandey stated that they also want the university to provide college masks to college students when they come to write exams.
“The university decided to provide masks to invigilators only. When it can provide masks to invigilators, why can’t it provide the same to students,” Pandey said.
DAVV to work with minimum staff
After an employee deployed at a hostel found positive for COVID-19, the university decided to work with limited numbers of non-teaching employees. It decided to call only those employees who services are really needed. It decided not to call employees from Red zones declared by district administration. The moves come a day after non-teaching employees leaders told the VC not to risk lives of their colleagues by calling them to duty until Rs 50 lakh insurance cover is provided to them.
Request to postpone exams put aside
Some students of Institute of Engineering Technology emailed a request to their director Sanjeev Tokekar for postponing exams till the COVID-19 scare ends.
Tokekar put forward the demand of students in the meeting but it was rejected. The meeting observed that final year students had got job offers from different companies. If their exams were not conduct shortly, the offers would stand cancelled, the meeting observed and rejected the demand.
