Last month, JNTUH (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad) decided to do away with grace marks and subject exemption, an advantage they used to give their students. This led to students losing out on vital opportunities and staring at a possible gap year. The Regulation 18 (R18) batch students had to face the brunt of this new regulation; although students of other R05, R07, R09, R13, R15 and R16, were provided with the benefits of grace marks and subject exemption.
Students along with NSUI (National Students' Union of India) Telangana protested against this new norm and got the university to respond with a notification informing about only grace marks application for the R18 batch on Thursday, September 15. However, according to students, this might not make much of a difference.
"For availing grace marks service the students have to fill-up the Form-5 (to be downloaded from students service portal) and the Principals have to sign at the appropriate place in the respective form," the JNTUH notification read.
“Only 20% of students will benefit from this. At least one subject exemption could have helped a major chunk of the students so that their degrees would be cleared,” says Shahazan Khan, a student who runs a Twitter page titled Jntuh Updates (@examupdt). He goes on to say, “It is done and dusted, I don’t think they’ll give the students any subject exemption and that might lead to loss of a year for students. The loss will be a burden on the students and hard for them to explain in interviews.”
The students also met State Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy last week; however, that was of no vail either. According to Shahazan, the response to the Education Minister was also negative.
“Considering the pandemic, on mere humanitarian grounds, the university should have been a little considerate.” Shahazan also expresses his disappointment regarding the university’s disinterest in communicating with the students. “The University did not even care to respond; not a single official statement or press release. This itself was extremely demotivating. Ultimately, the students lost here,” he said.
Despite the despair, students continue their protest. Another round of silent protest will start from Monday, as per sources and might be their last ditch effort at finding some hope; as Shahazan says, “This protest is our last hope. We will also try to meet Minister KTR (Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao) sir but we are not sure if that will change anything for the better.”
Protests will continue, but the university administration might not be flexible with their decision. The students hold on to the last threads of hope, while the fear of a year-loss looms large over their heads.