Promote sans tests, plead 1st yr medicos in AP

VIJAYAWADA: The first-year MBBS students and their parents have urged the state government to promote them to the second year due to improper conduct of classes and incompletion of syllabi due to the pandemic crisis.

A delegation of students and parents led by T. Srinivasa Vishwanatha called on NTR University of Health Sciences registrar Dr K. Sankar here on Saturday and submitted a memorandum seeking promotion to the second year.

They deplored that the classes for the first-year students could not be held properly due to the Covid-induced lockdown. They said the students were deprived of practical learning and later on, though online classes were started, they did not help the students as physical classes would.  They lamented that the improper clinical exposure and lack of practicals adversely impacted the learning. Add to it, many students were infected by Coronavirus and remained in quarantine at home or outside. The students are now worried about taking the exams without any subject knowledge and further the changed paper evaluation process under the new competency-based curriculum has turned a big worry to the first-year MBBS students.

The delegation said that there are chances of students failing due to the shortage of 5 to 10 marks in the exams due to lack of regular classes. They requested the government to promote the first-year students to the second year and also give them a chance to clear the backlogs. They further requested grace marks and restoration of paper evaluations in the old system in view of the Corona crisis.

The students and the parents said that they would also meet Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and minister for medical and health Alla Kalikrishna Srinivas on June 28 to explain their issues.