Playing truant has cost at least 4,150 II pre-university (PU) students across the State dear. They will not be allowed to sit for the final exam, scheduled to begin on Thursday, as they have not met the 75% attendance requirement.
“It may increase by another 100 or 200 students as we are verifying our numbers,” an official in the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) said. These students will have to enrol again for the 2017-2018 academic year.
Many private colleges have set up a system where the daily attendance of students is sent directly to their parents, but these safeguards don’t appear to have helped tackle the problem.
College managements said that despite repeated attendance shortage lists being announced and students issued warnings, many failed to comply with the attendance requirement. “In fact, college managements too are concerned about the future of students, and if students have around 70% [attendance], we try and take extra classes and ensure they will make the cut and get hall tickets,” the official said.
Last year, 4,720 students could not write the final exam because of attendance shortage.
Students stage protest
Students in some colleges in Bengaluru staged protests on Tuesday alleging that the college authorities had collected attendance fines from them with the assurance that they would get their hall tickets. A student of Seshadripuram PU College said, “The college collected a fine of ₹1,800 per subject and promised to get us admission tickets. But our exams begin on Thursday and we still have not got hall tickets.”
Repeated attempts by The Hindu to contact the college management for its response went unanswered.
C. Shikha, director of DPUE, said if students complain that colleges had taken money from them, an inquiry would be conducted.
‘College holding back hall tickets’
Meanwhile, a college in Bengaluru has come under fire with many students alleging that they have been denied admission tickets for the II PU exam on account of their poor showing in the preparatory tests.
While the students claim that the management was doing this to achieve a 100% pass status, the college has denied this. One student said he had fared poorly in three of the preparatory tests conducted by the college in December, and as a result, has been denied a hall ticket.
The college management, however, said it was a case of attendance shortage. “Now, days before the exam, they are trying to pressure us and are protesting outside the college,” a staff member said.
