Guru Nanak Dev University semester exams likely in first week of January

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 21

As the college teachers across the state have been holding a complete ‘education bandh’ for the last 22 days, Guru Nanak Dev University’s exams, which were slated to be held from mid-December would likely be held in January first week.

Protesting principals and teachers said in all probability the practical exams would be held in the first week of January and the theory exams would be pushed to around January 10.

Thousands of students from Guru Nanak Dev University-affiliated colleges have been sitting idle at home ever since the teachers went on protest demanding the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission of the UGC.

Members of the Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union on Tuesday held a massive protest near General Post Office. Dr SS Randhawa, General Secretary of the PCCTU, said, “We will not relent till our demands are accepted. We are expecting some good outcome on December 23 in the Punjab Cabinet meeting with Higher Education Minister Pargat Singh. Once our main demand of the 7th Pay Commission is cleared by the Cabinet, we will immediately get back to work. We will forgo our winter break and try to cover up all the loss of the students.”

Even though a two-week winter break at GNDU-affiliated colleges starts from January 1, the teachers said they were ready to take exams. “If everything goes as per our plans, we expect GNDU to start practical exams from the first week of January and theory papers from January 10 onwards,” said a college principal.

Meanwhile, the anger has now spilled to the roads from college gates. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Sanjeev Dhawan, district chief, PCCTU, said by not implementing the 7th UGC pay panel and delinking pay scales from the UGC, the state government was not only shutting its doors to crores of rupees coming from the Centre, but also unnecessarily increasing a financial burden on students. “This will also kill the academic spirit of thousands of teachers and compel them to waste their time on roads instead of letting them use their energy on teaching and research,” he said.

The protesting teachers said, “If our demands are not accepted, we will not vote for the Congress in the 2022 Assembly poll. The government knows it well that we can even influence our students.”

Dr Simranjit Singh Bains, district secretary, PCCTU, said the genuineness of the demands can be seen gauged by the fact that even the Principals’ Association has joined the protest.