Thousands of diploma holders entering engineering courses are a worried lot. With the seat selection for engineering courses almost completed, the students have missed a month’s classes besides their first internal (test). All because of a delayed announcement of their results.

In most colleges, the classes for third semester students commenced in mid August and these students have already missed five weeks of classes. With the third semester exams likely to be held in December, these students have to put in extra efforts to cope up with missed lessons besides taking additional internal test, if required.

Though the colleges have assured that special classes would be conducted for them, the students say that it will not be of much help as they will not get time to prepare for the exam. Worse, with Dasara holidays coming up shortly, the students might miss out even more.

“We have two months left to prepare if exams are going to be held in December. In these months, we’ll have to attend regular classes and bridge course (the subjects which the diploma students have not studied), which are conducted in parallel besides special classes. If we keep attending the classes, when will we get time to prepare,’’ asked Divya M. “ If only the government had announced the results soon, we would have had more time to prepare,” she added.

Vishranth V, another student said that since some subjects are already covered in depth in diploma course, the students can afford to skip some classes. “Mathematics is a difficult subject for us as we have not studied it in diploma. And, more classes are required for mathematics,” he added.

No break

Attending regular and special classes can be strenuous to students. For instance, in PES Institute of Technology, special classes are planned on Saturdays and Sundays, for a month. This means, the students will have to attend the colleges for a month without any break.

PES Group of Institutions CEO Prof D Jawahar said, since it's a semester scheme, there is less time for students to cope up with missed classes. "The semester scheme is 16 weeks and these students have already missed five weeks.

In the remaining 11 weeks, two weeks are allotted for conducting internals," he said, adding that third internal depended on students’ performance in first two internals. Suppose a student takes third internal, then the revision days would be reduced. "The regular students will finish third internal a month before the exam but diploma student will write the exam two weeks before the exam," he added.

R V College of Engineering Principal Dr S C Sharma added that even if the colleges conduct special classes, most students fail to turn up. "Diploma students, who attend the classes after a few weeks will miss a lot. We have no option but to conduct special classes otherwise we won't be able to finish the lessons," he said, adding that special classes are conducted throughout the semester.