Attendance deficit: More than 4,000 to miss PU exam

Over 4,000 students with attendance shortage are set to lose a year as they will be barred from appearing for the II PUC exams beginning in the first week of March.

The Karnataka Pre-University Department’s move comes days before the start of the exams as the students have failed to take note of repeated warnings, messages and notices since September asking them to ensure 75% attendance.

Accordingly, the department has marked these students as “shortage of attendance” and instructed college principals not to release their admission tickets.

The department had sent out draft admission tickets to all colleges. The principals were supposed to return the tickets of students ineligible to appear for exams due to attendance shortage. According to the Supreme Court direction, students must have 75% attendance in an academic year to get permission to write the final examination.

Pre-university Board officials told DH that the number of students who will be barred from appearing for the exam will increase by Wednesday, the last day for issuing admission tickets and for updating the attendance shortage list.

“We sent messages to parents, put up lists of such students on college notice boards and sent notices by post. However, students did not take them seriously. They will now lose a complete year,” a senior official told DH. Such students will also not be allowed to appear for supplementary examinations. “They will have to get admission to a college as freshers and appear for exams only during March/April 2021,” the official clarified.

M Kanagavalli, director, Pre-University Department said, “We have instructed college principals to issue admission tickets after verifying attendance details. They are not allowed to keep the admission tickets with them or issue them to students. Names of students with attendance shortage will be deleted from the list or they will be marked “Fail” on the marks card.”

What the Act says?

Rule 21 of the Karnataka Education Act 2006 specifies that 75% attendance is a must to be eligible to appear for the final exam. The rule applies even for I PUC, undergraduate, post-graduate and professional courses. There is a similar direction from the Supreme Court.

According to the rule, if any student falls short of attendance, he/she will not be allowed to sit for the final or supplementary examinations. They need to enrol/get admission as fresh candidates, get 75% attendance by attending the classes regularly and appear for final exams.