Exams may keep youth from polls

Hyderabad, April 2: Political parties in the state are luring young voters in earnest but university examinations may keep many of them away from the polling booth.

Annual examinations for under-graduate, post-graduate and professional courses such as engineering, MBA and MCA are scheduled to begin in the third week of April.
Universities have annou-
nced that there will be no exams on April 16 and 23, the polling dates for first and second phase of polls.
But since the students are in the thick of exams, political parties are afraid that they may not go to their native places just to cast their votes. Instead, they will stay back and study.
Parties such as the Telugu Desam and the Praja Rajyam had competed with each other in enrolling students as voters.
Most of the students pursuing professional courses have migrated to cities from their native places and have to go back to vote.
This year, 1.75 lakh students joined first year engineering courses, 82,000 students enrolled in MBA and MCA courses and 53,000 students joined PG courses.
As per the data available with the AP State Council of Higher Education, 70 per cent of these students have migrated to cities such as Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam from other places.
Engineering exams for second, third and fourth year students under JNTU-Hyderabad will begin on April 20. Nearly 400 out of 540 engineering colleges are affiliated to JNTU.
Exams for MBA and MCA courses of various universities in the State are also scheduled to begin from April 20.
PG exams of Osmania University will begin on April 25 and exams of Acharya NG Ranga Agriculture University are to be held between April 12 and April 26. To add to the woes, over six lakh candidates who applied for the DSC exam to fill 52,000 teacher posts and are busy preparing for the exam to be held in the last week of May.