Mysuru: Forum of Former Vice-Chancellors of Karnataka State Universities (FVCK) has come forward to assist the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) to resolve the issues facing lakhs of students regarding their degree certificates and marks cards.

In a statement, the Vice-President of FVCK Prof. P. Venkataramaih has said that the KSOU had been offering higher education over the years to lakhs of persons who had missed it for various reasons and had become quite famous because of the quality education it provided.

“Unfortunately since 2015 KSOU is in the red due to the cancellation of recognition of all the academic programmes based on alleged irregularities committed by the University violating the norms, guidelines of the earlier Distance Education Council (DEC) and now Distance Education Board (DEB) under University Grants Commission (UGC). Since UGC has taken the extreme decision of withdrawing the recognition to all the courses offered by KSOU, the allegations appear to be quite serious,” he has said in the release.

However, the FVCK has demanded that the KSOU, which is offering distance education, should not be closed for any reasons. The State Government and the KSOU officials should make all efforts to get the re-affiliation from the UGC at least from 2017-18 academic year.

The Forum of Ex-Vice-Chancellors will come out with a solution to the students of 2012-13 batch onwards who have passed the exams, said Prof. Venkataramaiah in the release.

Former Vice-Chancellor Prof. S.N. Hegde, the President of FVCK, speaking to Star of Mysore, yesterday said, “The idea of closing down KSOU is not correct at all and that too the Higher Education Minister talking about it is sending wrong signals. There is always a solution to any difficult problem and we as former VCs have some ideas of resolving them.”

According to Prof. Hegde, one solution could be that for those who have passed the exams in the earlier batches, a eligibility test could be conducted to sanctify the certificates issued to them so that they would be able to take the competitive exams or apply for jobs.

He also revealed that though the FVCK was ready to offer its services and guidance, the present KSOU VC had not approached them even once. “With our vast collective knowledge and experience, we are always there to guide the educational institutions. However, in this case, seeing the plight of the KSOU students, we decided to voluntarily do something about it,” said Prof. Hegde.