Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Students cry foul over KU rule

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The rule of the University of Kerala stipulating that a student of a postgraduate course who fails to clear one paper during a semester should rewrite all papers of that semester has come in for criticism from a group of students of the Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) course.

The rule was made applicable to the MCA programme following a meeting of the University’s Academic Council on May 24 and 25, 2006. Prior to that MCA students had to repeat a semester’s papers only if they lost more than two papers in that semester.

The students demanded that the university amend the rule so that a student who loses a paper need rewrite only that particular paper.

“We have met the Vice-Chancellor with our petition. He told us that there would soon be a meeting of the Board of Studies and that it will be discussed during that meeting,” an MCA student said here on Tuesday.

Even if a student falls ill and is unable to write one paper, he will have to write all papers in that semester, the student added.

The criticism voiced by MCA students has also caused some academics to question the very need for continuing with this rule that is applicable to students of the university’s semester-based postgraduate courses.

K. Sasikumar, the former syndicate member and professor Department of Commerce, said it was illogical to make students write four or five papers if they failed in just one.

“In the credit and semester postgraduate courses in the university departments, if a student fails to clear one paper he is given one more chance to write it. If he fails to clear it then he will have to repeat the course with the next batch,” Dr. Sasikumar said.

The rule can be made applicable to all postgraduate courses under the university. Head of the Department of Computer Science M. Ramachandra Kaimal agreed that the MCA students had a genuine grievance.

“We will discuss this in the Board of Studies; the interests of the students will be fully protected,” he said.

At the same time, there are also academics who point out that it is very hard for a student to fail in a paper for the semester-based postgraduate courses in affiliated colleges given the liberal awarding of marks and the internal assessment component.

The lecturer said he hoped the university would also discuss revamping the evaluation mechanism for semester-based courses while discussing the issue raised by the MCA students.

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