Several students and teachers expressed their anger against the Karnataka State Dr. Gangubai Hangal Music and Performing Arts University (KSGHMPAU) of Mysuru over the lack of facilities on the Jnana Bharathi campus, Bengaluru, where the document verification for performing arts examination was held on Tuesday.
They alleged that students and senior citizen teachers were made to wait in queue for hours under the scorching sun with no clarity and communication from the university about the procedure. “There was no discipline even in giving tokens. The university has failed to provide drinking water and proper toilet facility,” they alleged.
The KSGHMPAU recently called for online applications for the examinations for junior, senior, and Vidwath courses in performing arts, and around 17,000 students applied. Earlier, the Karnataka State Examination and Evaluation Board of the Department of School Education and Literacy conducted the examinations for performing arts. The board also conducted document verification.
However, the State government brought all the performing arts courses and exams under the KSGHMPAU from the academic year 2023-24. The university decided to conduct in-person document verification of students and teachers.
The document verification held on Tuesday was for the students and teachers of Bengaluru South, Ramanagara and Tumakuru at Jnanabharathi campus and more than 1000 people attended.
A teacher said, “The university has failed to communicate with the students and parents. There was no response to our calls. The document verification process was very slow. Earlier, the board was setting up 65 document verification centres in the city. This time, the document verification is being done only zone-wise.”
Speaking to The Hindu, Nagesh V.Bettakote, Vice Chancellor of KSGHMPAU, said, “The document verification schedule and all other information had been announced on the university website. For the first day of document verification at the Jnana Bharathi centre, we distributed only 200 tokens and messaged all the candidates to attend the document verification process. However, the wrong message was circulated among groups of students and teachers, and more than a thousand people came to the document verification. It was not our mistake,” he said.
