Direct entry second-year engineering (DSE) students are faced with the monumental task of finishing the entire year’s portion in under six months. This comes as most of their batch mates have already concluded a semester.
Students that opt for a three-year diploma in technical education after finishing Class X are allowed lateral or direct entry into second-year engineering courses. At the moment, Maharashtra has more than 750 diploma institutes that have a capacity of 1.5 lakh seats.
“Unlike the first-year engineering admissions which got delayed, the regular second-year engineering batches started their lectures on time in October, last year, and completed their semester-three exams as well. Our admissions through the state common entrance test (CET) cell ended only in February, by then our batch mates had finished semester-three and we’re studying for semester-four,” a student said while speaking to HT.
The student went on to say that while their batch mates have six subjects to study this semester, DSE students will have to cover a total of 12 subjects from the third and fourth semesters at once.
“Our batch mates attend two-to-three-hour classes online every day, while DSE students are made to sit through seven-hours of daily online lectures to make up for the lost time. We are overburdened and have no time to prepare for examination at present,” another student said.
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Taking this into account, the Maharashtra Students Welfare Association (MSWA) has sought the help of the University of Mumbai (MU) for more clarity on the issue.
President of the MSWA, Vaibhav Ekde said, “The DSE students are worried that they might have to appear for exams for both semesters within six months, and this is something the university should have thought through in advance. What’s worse is that after repeated requests, the MU examination department has not yet clarified the examination schedule for this batch.”
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Meanwhile, the MU examinations department is still working on the exam dates. “The exam for semester-three DSE students will mostly be held in the month of April, we will release the schedule soon. Students will have enough time to prepare for their exams of both semesters,” MU’s Director, Board of Examination and Evaluation Vinod Patil said.
Students have faced a hard time during the coronavirus pandemic owing to lockdowns and other restrictions. While remote or online learning was adopted, not all students could access this mode of learning. Although in-person classes resumed to some degree across Maharashtra, the rising cases of COVID-19 have dampened those plans for the time being.
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