DU cancels current semester exams for 1st, 2nd yr students
nNEWDELHI: Delhi University (DU) on Thursday cancelled the upcoming semester examinations for first- and second-year undergraduate students and first-year postgraduate students, owing to the prevailing coronavirus pandemic and consequent lockdown, a move expected to impact nearly 700,000 students.
The students — including those enrolled in the School of Open Learning (SOL) and Noncollegiate Women’s Education Board (NCWEB) — will instead be evaluated on the basis of their internal assessment, as well as their performance in previous semesters.
In the event a student has no previous examinations, they will be graded entirely on their internal assignments. “[For] students of the intermediate semester or term or year, the grading of the students could be composite of 50% marks on the basis of the pattern of internal evaluation or assignment based evaluation adopted by the university or colleges or faculty or centres wherever applicable and the remaining 50% marks can be awarded on the basis of performance in previous semester or term or year only,” read the DU notification, signed by Vinay Gupta, the varsity’s dean of examinations.
Final-year UG and PG students of the varsity will still have to sit for their examinations online, which are to be conducted in the ‘open-book format’ (OBF) — a move that has led to widespread opposition from students and teachers.
DU executive council member Rajesh Jha pointed out that many students this year have raised questions about the previous semester’s grades.
“Many students said they hadn’t scored satisfactorily in the previous semester. Going for re-evaluation will be difficult since it costs ₹1,000 per subject and many do not have the means to do so, especially during the pandemic. These students will suffer because their grades will fall. In addition to this, SOL students have been asked to submit two assignments without providing them with adequate reading material,” he said.
Jyoti (who goes by her first name), a resident of Shahbad Dairy and a second-year SOL student said studying at home is inconvenient at the moment. “All my family members are home right now. I have a low-end smartphone and don’t have the money to buy data packs.”
Many students, however, said they are “relieved” as they won’t have to appear for the online OBF examinations.
Hitesh Tanotra, a second-year student living in Jammu & Kashmir’s Kathua district said, “Internet connectivity issues remain while submitting our assignments. My teacher had to give me additional time for my submission, since I could not send the email before the deadline.”