At a time when the Delhi-NCR region is witnessing a sharp rise in the daily count of Covid-19 infections, students from Amity University are pleading against the university’s decision to hold offline examinations. The university is likely to take a decision on the matter soon.
Several students from the university have launched a virtual protest resisting its decision to hold the semester-end examination beginning 10 January. The university had issued the semester end exams date sheet for offline examination on 30 December.
According to several students, the university had made offline exams compulsory and only on special grounds, after a student has provided a valid reason with supporting documents, a student would be allowed to take online exams.
This led to widespread protest amongst the students of the university who had been asking to either postpone the examination or hold it online.
A student from Amity University Noida while speaking to The Daily Guardian said that she is scared to risk her life and go to the university to sit for her exams.
“The university has decided to continue with the offline exam despite all the students making repeated pleas with the management to hold it online or postpone it. We cannot risk our lives like this, we have parents and grandparents at home, if something happens, will the university be held responsible?” the student asked.
While another student from Amity’s BTech branch told this correspondent that he had recently visited the campus and none of the staff there were wearing masks and no social distance is maintained within the campus.
“If the faculty themselves fail to wear masks, how will they monitor students? Inside the campus, during the examination how does the management ensure that everyone will wear a mask and maintain social distance? If there is a Covid outbreak inside the campus who will be responsible for it? Will the management take responsibility that there will not be any case of Covid-19 due to this examination?” this BTech student asked.
Reports have also come in from the students of Amity University’s Noida campus that many of their fellow mates have tested positive. Several students have also taken to social media to vent out their anger.
Some students have also shared messages and screenshots with The Daily Guardian which indicates that some hostel students and students from certain courses have indeed tested positive for Covid-19 within the campus.
The Daily Guardian contacted Amity University to get an official response to the concerns being raised by the students.
In response, Media In-charge of Amity University Dr Savita Mehta said that the students who have tested positive should share their respective reports with the university at the earliest and that the university is currently reviewing the situation and a decision would soon be communicated to the students.
“The present situation is very dynamic and the university is reviewing the situation with the students and the senior management. When the date sheet was announced, the situation in India was normal and now that the cases are beginning to rise, the university is considering holding an online examination for all the students for this semester. The safety of our students is paramount and we are concerned about it,” Dr Mehta said.