CUK: Students sleep in classrooms to protest against inadequate accommodation facilities

Students of Central University of Kerala (CUK) have started staying back in libraries and classrooms since Tuesday night, demanding hostel facility for freshers. They allege that a large number of students from the latest batch of post graduates had to cancel their admission and leave the university as there were no hostel rooms for them. This was a foreseen situation in the university as it increased the intake this year and number of students seeking admission increased accordingly.

After the admission procedures began on June 30, a few students had met the Vice Chancellor, G Gopakumar, on Friday and submitted a petition regarding the hostel shortage crisis. Subramanian Sarath, a first year student, said that Gopakumar’s response was that those unable to afford to stay in private hostels could request a transfer certificate. “In a previous academic council meeting, the VC had also said that no hostel rooms will be available for the new research scholars,” said students. At an initial stage of the protest, the student community sent out petitions to various central bodies including the National Women’s Commission, minority commission and the VC and Registrar of CUK.

Seeing no result, around 300 girls occupied the library and classrooms of all three campuses at Periye, Padannakkad and Vidyanagar since Tuesday night. The boys, who also face the accommodation problem, decided to join the protest.

“This inconsiderate and ridiculous measures of administration failed to foresee the hardships of the new entrants who are now lodging temporarily in the university hostels as well as private hostels around the Kanhangad region,” said Ruksana Kassim, a second year student.

Amid mounting protests, the administration started providing the contact numbers of private hostels to the parents of freshers, alleged students. “This indeed raises questions as the proprietor of this private hostel is a matron of the university hostel,” said another student, requesting anonymity. “In fact, the private hostels are unaffordable to many students as they choose to come to central universities expecting low fee structure,” added Kassim. The fee in private hostels is two times more than that of the varsity hostel as they charge Rs 5000 per month whereas students pay Rs 2200 for six months in varsity hostels. Apart from this, the students would have to bear transport costs as these private hostels are located far from university.

We reached out to Gopakumar for his comments on these allegations. “I am on my way to Delhi, I can’t comment anything now,” he said. This story will be updated if and when he does.

“The basic idea of the protest is that students of an educational institution should have equal access to all the facilities in the university. The aggressive acts of the university authority who are supposed to be the guardians of higher education is unpardonable,” said Visak Vishwambaran, a research scholar.

Meanwhile, the administration issued a notice on Wednesday that said that all classes have been suspended indefinitely as the protesters have disrupted classes, library and labs. “This is totally untrue as our protest meant to occupy classrooms to study late night and sleep as many students did not have places to go to. We deem this as a serious violation of our rights to study and we have decided to continue the protest,” added Vishwambaran.