In recent times, the covid-19 pandemic has put the educational sector on a long halt. In Pakistan, a number of educational institutes were closed to prevent further loss during the pandemic, but right now, the University of Karachi is being unfair to the students in this situation. First they announce after 4 months that the online classes will be taken on a regular basis and the exams will be taken after 2 months, but the problem is that no teacher of any faculty has taken that measure at all and the worst part is that they didn’t even provided the students with any notes or any other resources to prepare for the exams. When the online classes are not being taken and students have no means of preparation for exams, then how is the management able to take the exams or how the students will give the exams without any guidance or preparation?
And another issue is the semester fees, which will be given after the exam to continue the year, but how are the students going to pay a large amount of fee when unemployment is in the air due to covid-19 pandemic and their parents or themselves went jobless due to the lockdown in the country? Where will the students get the money to pay the fee for the next semester? They have already paid the fees for the current semester and the online classes are not being conducted to progress education and the university still wants the fees?
In these matters, the university of Karachi has treated the students unfairly during the covid-19 pandemic, not providing notes for study or not conducting classes online and demanding a fee for the next semester which cannot be paid by anyone in this situation. What university should do is either provide education free of cost in this dark period so they can have a job in the future or simply cancel the entire year and promote the students to the next year if they cannot handle the situation properly.
Zuhaib Shah, Karachi
