Students Protest Against Gujarat University. Why?

Gujarat University is said to be conducting its admission process these days. The students staged a protest against the directive of Gujarat University acting Vice-Chancellor Mukul Shah to give admissions to only girls in the morning shift in Gujarat College and admit boys in the afternoon shift.

On Monday, a number of students accompanied by student leaders demonstrated against the decision which they temed as ‘partism' and ‘discriminatory'. The protesters stated that it violated the rules which stipulated that admission should be granted on the basics of merit.

The directive concerned the HSC general stream student's admissions in the first year B.Com who had cleared the supplementary exams recently. However, Shah refuted the allegations said against him by the students.

When contacted, he said that he had not asked the college to give admission to only girls, but had asked the college authorities to give preference to girls in the morning shift. "If girls are given admission in the morning shift, they can work from afternoon", he said.

When asked if the same logic could be applied to boys as well as studying in the morning shift would enable them work in the afternoon, he said "Boys, hardly attend classes. It will not make any big difference to them".

Gujarat College principal could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. However, officials said that there are a large number of seats lying vacant in the evening shift for which there are no takers".

What do you think? Should first preference given to girl students? Why?