Students on a strike at Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 31: A group of students of Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya met the higher education minister Badri Narayan Patra today and requested him to postpone their exams by a month.

The students have been on a strike since Friday, protesting against lack of regular faculty and other basic amenities at the college.

“Our course is not completed as most of our classes are managed by guest lecturers, who do not come to college regularly. What do we write in our answer sheets when we have not learnt anything,” said Kabiraj Pradhan, a Plus Three final-year student.

“The exam schedule was declared a week ago. Principal Nabin Kumar Parida says it is compulsory for the Plus Two second-year students to appear for the test, failing which they cannot fill up the forms on November 28 for their board exams. He wants Plus Three exams to be conducted simultaneously, but we need more time for preparations,” he said.

The students said Patra had assured them to look into the matter. “He has also given us his personal cellphone number and said we could call him up in case of any problem,” said another Plus Three student.

Parida said he had appealed to the students to withdraw the strike and was ready for a compromise.

“The students have boycotted classes for the past three days. I am doing whatever is possible on my part,” said the principal.

“I have postponed the exams to November 11 and questions would come only from those portions of the lesson, which have been covered so far. I have also decided to give grace marks to students who fail to secure the minimum pass mark. They should understand that the Plus Two second-year students need to appear for the test in order to be eligible for the form fill-up procedure,” he said.

Parida said the decisions regarding fulfilment of the students’ other demands, including construction of a separate gate to the college, regularisation of the guest lecturers and promotion of the assistant lecturers to the post of lecturers among others, would be taken by the state government.

The college has five regular lecturers and 10 guest lecturers. In the wake of certain allegations made by the students, the government had suspended two regular lecturers in 2008.