Students of Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad are seeking justice from the authorities, who they claim, are forcing them to write exams in the pandemic despite requests for cancellation or some relief in a changed format.
The students of first to fourth year pursuing their LLB course online due to the pandemic have requested the authorities to cancel the exams or at least give them some relief in the form of Multiple Choice Questions (McQs) format. But the law school authorities have apparently denied them that benefit. “We have requested the authorities to take into consideration the Bar Council of India’s decision to constitute a high-powered committee to study similar issues with several law schools in the country. But the authorities want to go ahead with the exams without even considering the recommendations likely to be given in a week,” a student wishing anonymity said.
In fact, the Symbiosis International University, Hyderabad to which the law school is affiliated, has cancelled the examinations last year citing the pandemic. For the next semester, when the situation was improved, the authorities conducted the exams with multiple choice questions only. “But now when the situation is worse than the previous year they want the students to write descriptive answers,” the students claim.
Students say the administration should consider providing relief in the form of MCQ format at least as they are under tremendous pressure with some students losing the near and dear ones. “Since the classes too were held online for major part of the year it is unfair to ask us to write long descriptive answers sitting on the system.”
In several emails sent to the administration, the students have posed various questions related to the software, timings, and technical aspects but they were not answered satisfactorily . Moreover, an internal survey conducted among 650 students also saw majority favouring cancelling the exams or change in the format.
These law students also claimed that the administration has not consulted with the students at any point during the course of this year and this goes against several norms of fairness and guidelines. “Given the present circumstances and stressed environment it is unfair to force us to write the exams,” the students said while requesting the authorities to consider their demand. Efforts to reach out to the university proved futile.
