Mental state of students

Through the column of your esteemed newspaper I would like to share my views regarding the mental state of students during this lockdown period.

It has been almost one-and-a-half months of the lockdown and still it's going on. This lockdown has affected all sections of people, and students are no exception. If we see the mental health of students in this period almost 80% of the students are not stable. Teachers and the administration are trying their best to make study materials reach their students through e-classrooms and many other sources with the help of Internet. Do all get these materials? Do they have proper equipment? Is the network service of telecom good in every area? We all know that there are still places where the network services are not good. There are many issues which stand as barriers for students. I would like to highlight more on the students of higher level from Bachelor's degree to Ph.D level. Already the decision for the school level to HS level has been taken and they have been promoted, but the students of higher level are facing lots of problems because they need to deals with many things at this stage. The UGC has declared that the sessions will start from August and new admission sessions will start from September. They will conduct full-term examinations, and the students need to submit their assignments. Is this a good decision? I don't think so because most of the students are dealing with many problems and also no one is mentally stable to deal with exams. We need to find solution regarding examinations. I would like to suggest that the universities can skip the examination for this semester. I don't think that skipping one semester exam will harm the students because already they have taken examinations of earlier semesters. Universities can evaluate those marks of that semester exam and can grant one semester promotion. Or they can conduct the exam of the semester syllabus which has been covered during the regular period. At the present situation no one is prepared to sit in full-term examination. Universities need to understand the problems being faced by their students.

Daisy Chetia,

Cotton University