Karnataka Medical degree exams postponed following protests by students

Agencies

Bengaluru, 30 Nov 2020: In a relief for medical students in Karnataka, the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Karnataka has announced the postponement of the exams that were to be held from January 2021. In a revised circular issued on Saturday, the university said that the exams for first year students will commence on February 8, and for second year students it will begin on March 2. For the final year and third year students, the exams will be held from March 23.

 

This revised circular comes after students of medical education institutions affiliated to RGUHS staged protests in several districts including Bengaluru, and submitted memorandums to deans and principals of medical colleges. This, after a circular dated November 18 stated that the colleges would start from December 1 and exams would commence from January 19.

 

The students were apprehensive about writing exams at such a short notice, and about writing exams without having completed practical classes. On November 23, medical students participated in a Twitter storm with the hashtag #PostponeMBBSexams, which had more than 20,000 tweets.

 

“The postponement is definitely a huge relief to us and it does make a big difference. Now we will get time to catch up on the practical experience of treating patients we had missed all these days,” said Monica (name change do on request), a final year student of Bangalore Medical College.

 

She added, “I don’t want to write a compromised exam just to get a prefix in front of my name, I really want the experience necessary to be a good doctor.”

 

Hemant (name changed on request), a final year student of MR Medical College, Kalaburagi, said, “Before the exam we were in a dilemma whether to study for annual exams or our internals. Now the colleges can spread out the internals more and we will get sufficient time to study everything.”