Mangaluru: In an unusual programme at Ambika Padavi Poorva Vidyalaya in Puttur, all students of the PU College voluntarily took an oath in the presence of the college management not to use social media apps.
About 400 students of the first and second year PU courses have taken the oath not to use social media apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram till they complete their second year PUC! Some students have gone a step further with four of them voluntarily handing over their mobile phones to the college founder! There is an interesting story behind this development. The college management was concerned after they found that about 20 students had failed in the unit test held recently. Instead of scolding the students, the management decided to get to the root of the problem.
"We asked the lecturers to look into the reasons. Probing the cause, they went to social media and found that about 17 of these students who had failed were very active in Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. These who got poor results, spent the maximum time after college hours on these social media apps," College Correspondent Subrahmanya Nattoja told Deccan Chronicle.
The management called the parents and asked them to take necessary measures to ensure that their children are not distracted. However the problem took an unusual turn when the Students Association elected recently, got to know about the development. The student leaders asked the college administration to allow them to have a discussion with all the students for three hours.
On July 13 (Friday) the college did not have any classes in the afternoon. The student association leaders held a meeting with all the students. Association President Dheeraj, Discipline Minister Sonam and others addressed the students and spoke about the problems due to their addiction to social media. They also gave examples of their friends or relatives who had faced similar problems.
The two hour discussion made the students take a decision which nobody thought of. "They concluded the meeting and told us that they had decided to take an oath not to use social media till they completed their PUC! I could not believe that students of this age had taken such a big decision. I was astonished by their decision," Nattoja explained.
"We took an oath in the name of parents declaring that we would not use social media like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram till we completed PUC!" Sonam said. "We will use internet for education purposes. But we will keep away from social media as it is not necessary in a student’s life. It will lead to addiction," she added.
