‘We have become zombies’, say helpless students at a 450,000-strong Indian university launching a YouTube protest against a broken system

• Second semester exams for certain undergraduate courses were postponed until June due to India’s Lok Sabha elections.
• The students have now taken to YouTube, launching a searing protest campaign demanding timely tests.
• Some students claimed in the video they have not even written a single exam in over two years years, which has delayed their programs to five years instead of three, causing much anguish and worry over their prospects.

Students screaming ‘‘We want exams” is a rare sight -- pretty much anywhere in the world. Yet, that is exactly what college students at Magadh University in Bihar, India want because of an unexplained delay that could prolong their undergraduate programmes by at least two years.

The students are so frustrated by staff incompetence and continuing delays in their annual exams, they have now taken to YouTube, launching a searing protest campaign demanding timely tests.

“For the past month, we have been running around government offices, but defeated, we went to the university administration to allow us a peaceful protest -- but even that was declined,” one student said in the video titled #mulea, short for Magadh University Late Exam Andolan.



Some students claimed in the video they have not even written a single exam in over two years years, which has delayed their programs to five years instead of three, causing much anguish and worry over their prospects.

According to a recent public notice posted on the university’s website, second semester exams for certain undergraduate courses were postponed until June due to India’s Lok Sabha elections. Reasons behind the previous exam delays are unclear.

“This affects our careers and our lives,” another student can be heard saying. While several others chimed in with their impassioned pleas for exams, while vowing to keep supporting the protest.

Bodh Gaya, Bihar- based Magadh University, is a private university that has 44 constituent and 105 affiliated colleges under it and offers several diploma and degree courses, according to its website. The university was founded in 1962 in “a sprawling campus of 460 acres of land enjoying the spiritual breeze of the Bodhi Tree which enlightened Lord Buddha,” reads its website.

The university authorities could not be reached immediately for comment.

The state of Bihar is notorious for lax regulation and students cheating on exams. Two years, ago Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University had to delay an exam after the university authorities forgot to print question papers.