Denied tickets, students allege discrimination

Some of the students who were denied hall tickets for the II PUC examinations because of low classroom attendance have accused their college of “discrimination”.

Thursday was the last day for around 20 students of Sheshadripuram Independent Pre-University College to procure the hall tickets and take the exam. But when they arrived at the college, they were denied the hall tickets on the grounds that their classroom attendance was less than the stipulated 75%. Most of them didn’t even have 50% attendance.

Students said some of their batchmates with less than 50% attendance were given hall tickets when they came to collect them earlier. Harish (name changed), a CEBA student, said, “Many of my friends with just 20% have received hall tickets as they cited various reasons for their absence from the classroom. They were given hall tickets on Monday. When we went the following day, we were told that we did not have enough attendance,” he said.

Adarsh Shetty, a science student who claimed to have 65% attendance, quoted the college authorities as saying that he had to take the supplementary exam. Geetha, another science student, said that when she produced a medical certificate to explain her absence from classroom, the college said anyone could “fake” the document.

As many as 4,200 students across Karnataka have been denied the hall tickets.

Amendment to Act
C Shikha, Director, Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE), said there was no proposal before the government to amend the Karnataka Pre-University Education (Academic, Registration, Administration and Grant-in-aid etc) Act, 2006. “We are considering allowing students who do not have 75% attendance because of genuine reasons. We may exempt students who produce medical certificates. But no decision has been take as yet,” she added.