Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Oct 17: Lecturers who evaluated the answer sheets of the second PU supplementary examination are now a worried lot. Their anxiety stems from the fact that over 250 lecturers who participated in the evaluation process have tested positive for the deadly infection, and that over 35 have already lost their lives. The number of infections among such lectures is rising.

It is learnt that when feeding marks at the evaluation centre, separate computers were not provided to individual evaluators and everyone used the same available computers, and this could be the reason for this high incidence of coronavirus, a lecturer who was one of the evaluators, said.

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Karnataka State PU Lecturers Association has urged the government to compensate the lectures and their families as they put their lives at stake when evaluating the answer sheets and as a result, are facing miseries now. It has also asked the government to treat the lecturers who died as corona warriors and release compensation of Rs 30 lac to the families of the deceased. It further asked the chief minister and education minister to meet the treatment expenses of the lecturers who are hospitalised.

At the same time the government has passed an order declaring holiday for PU college lecturers from October 21 to November 1. Many of these lectures are involved with online classes and administrative work even though regular classes have not commenced. Many have also been engaged in anti-Covid operations. Therefore, PU Lecturers Association had sought midterm holidays even for PU lecturers. Education minister Suresh Kumar, said in his Facebook post that holiday as above has been declared for PU lecturers.

Director of PU department, R Snehal, said that if any representations are received from the valuators, the same would be sent to the chief secretary for further action. She clarified that so far no such representations have been received.