The Student Union of 24 Colleges recently emailed Vice chancellor, Yogesh Tyagi regarding open book examinations of final year students. They have mentioned problems and issues regarding OBE.
University of Delhi released guidelines for OBE on 30th May, 2020 in which various solutions were given by the university. After the guidelines were released many Student Bodies such as NSUI, ABVP, CYSS & Student unions stand against the decision. In conversation with Rajesh jha, Executive member of DUTA we came to know that DUTA is also against this decision.
The release was thoroughly studied by the Unions. We would like to bring to your notice the problems and issues linked with this arrangement. Please find below the reference to the release along with the queries that we have. The percentages are in reference to the survey that was conducted by the Students’ Unions of the University of Delhi. Please find the survey results attached.
Point number 1 of the release:
The OBE do not entirely require the online platform and require only limited access to internet and hardware for uploading the question papers prior to the commencement of examination and for uploading the answer sheets after completion of the examination.
OUR QUESTIONS:
The internet is usually unavailable at odd moments, students have complained of losing internet connection while uploading the answer sheets. According to the survey, 78.4% of students do not have cyber cafes nearby, 91.4% of students face mobile networks issues, 70.4% of students do not have a wifi connection at home, 87.5% students say that their wifi collapses when needed, 74.5% students face difficulty downloading the pdfs ( hence are unable to access to the reading material as well ), 63.7% of students do not have smart gadgets to open the pdfs smoothly, 92.6% of students already fear that they will not be able to complete their exam on time with the available gadgets at home and 75.1% of students say that a low basic connectivity is not sufficient to take exams.
With the aforementioned,
How does the University guarantee that no student undergoing genuine connectivity issues gets a detention as per the new guidelines generated.
For example: if a student successfully uploads the first three answer sheets for the first three exams, and fails to do so for the last exam.
How will the University make sure that the student does not fail and is heard onto?
Point number 2 of the release:
The examinations of final semester/term/year shall begin from 01.07. 2020 as notified vide notification dated 14.05.2020 available on the University website. The tentative schedule of examinations to be conducted in OBE mode for the final year students of all UG programmes in regular mode as registered with colleges and departments as well as for those registered with NCWEB and School of Open Learning have already been released on 29.05.2020. The tentative datesheets have been released to ascertain any left out papers or any other inconsistency in the same and based on the inputs /suggestions received from the students and stakeholders , the final date sheet as required shall be released.
OUR QUESTIONS:
During a time when the world is fighting with covid-19 and its severity, India is yet to experience covid’s peak. With said so, both July and August are most likely to see the maximum number of cases. According to the survey, 52.2% of the students have corona infected people at home and in their neighbourhood. 88.6% of the students do not have the proper study material with them to prepare from. Final year students are already experiencing depression and anxiety for their career.
With the aforementioned,
How is the University planning to make sure that the thousands of students appearing for the exams do get heard by their teachers?
Does the University think that the administration and teachers are equipped enough to deal with the queries of 1000s of students sitting for the exams?
Point number 8 and 18 of the release:
The students may contact in advance with their college through e-mode to avail the ICT based infrastructure facility for examination. Subject to availability of these facilities, the college may decide to extend the same their students in limited number those who need to be taken care in case of non availability of internet and hardware required for examinations. However, norm of social distancing, safety and health issues have to be taken care at priority and no compromise should be allowed while extending facilities. If number increases, the students can avail the facilities available at Common Service Centre (CSC) (as mentioned later) in the nearest location of their residence.
The University of Delhi is bound to protect the interests of those students who are residing in areas like Jammu and Kashmir and other such areas all over India which lack the internet and hardware facility required for the OBE and have stuck up at their places due to the Covid 19 pandemic. To facilitate such students the University of Delhi as a major measure, has finalized to engage Common Service Centres (CSC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
• The students shall be allowed to use the ICT infrastructure resources available with the CSC for downloading and taking print out of the question papers, scanning and uploading the answer sheets on the portal.
• The students can avail all these facilities free of cost available at CSCs. There are more than two lakh functional CSCs located at almost all Gram panchayats at village level throughout India and all of them shall be available for the students.
• Students can access the details of the CSC available at their nearest locations from the official website of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)
OUR QUESTIONS :
While, norm of social distancing, safety and health issues will be taken care of at priority and no compromise will be allowed while extending facilities, the students will use a mode of transport to reach such places leading to higher chances of getting infected.
With the aforementioned,
How is the University okay with sending the students to the nearest CSC in case they are facing issues with the services provided by the college during a time when the number of covid cases are increasing tremendously, putting the students at a higher risk of covid infection?
Point number 13 of the release :
The students shall answer the questions on plain papers of A4 size. Students should put page number on each paper
OUR QUESTION:
According to the survey, 76.3% of students do not possess A4 plain sheets, 89.7% of students take more time writing on plain sheets.
How is writing on plain sheets crucial to taking exams?
Point number 14 of the release:
The total duration of the OBE shall be of 3 hours of which 2 hours shall be given to the students for answering the questions and an additional hour shall be utilized for downloading the question papers and uploading the scanned images of answer sheets after completion of the examinations.
The students belonging to the Divyaang (PWD) Category shall be given 5 hours to complete the examination.
OUR QUESTION:
The practical exams conducted were also of the same duration, where students couldn’t upload their answer sheets on time. The practical exams taken were of 25 marks each, whereas the final exams will carry a weightage of 75 marks each. 88% of the students say that the practical exams taken cannot be trusted as a successful mode of taking OBE.
With the aforementioned,
How does the University not realise that 2 hours to attempt a paper of 75 marks is not enough, with 1 hour given to download and upload the pdfs?
Point number 16 of the release:
The University cares for those students who are not able to appear for the OBE remotely and thus will give such students one more chance to appear for the conventional mode of examinations as and when the present situation improves. The conventional mode of examinations in such case if required shall be conducted after the publication of results of OBE. The fresh dates for filling in the examination forms for the left out students of the final semester/term/year shall be notified probably by the beginning of September, 2020.
OUR QUESTIONS:
The term for the final year students was to end in the month of may, the students are already experiencing stress, depression and anxiety for their future which appears bleak to most of them, with the companies revoking their job offers. By when will the present situation improve cannot be estimated yet.
Also, students from numerous courses had to face trouble with their previous semester results. Many were marked absent, others were graded F. Most of the complaints were raised by students whose results were declared during April/ May. Clearly these answer sheets were checked during the lockdown.
With the aforementioned,
If such discrepancies can occur in checking the answer sheets (that were in fact submitted in the conventional manner and were checked in person by the examiners), how can the students trust the university with the online exams? Further, the university has asked to declare the results by 31 July which clearly shows how everything is being done hastily. From their experience, the students fear that their answer sheets might get skipped in the emails and they will again be marked absent or graded F. Problems like those mentioned above can occur in the OBE with greater frequency.
Point number 17 of the release:
Mock tests shall be available on the portal one week prior from the commencement of the examinations to facilitate the students who are appearing for examinations to become aware about the mode of examinations and use of tools required for downloading question papers and uploading scanned answer sheets after the completion of examinations.
Our questions:
How is the University expecting the students to prepare themselves for this new mode of examinations within a week?
SUGGESTIONS
With due respect to the suggestions that have come from the student body, we understand that it is important to find a substitute for examinations. We hereby suggest the following alternatives:
- In accordance with the UGC Report guidelines for the intermediate semester/year students, internal evaluation for the current academic year (2019-20) may constitute 50% of our marks, with the remainder 50% marks being derived from the students’ previous 5 batches of examinations.
- Alternatively, following the 25-75 marks ratio followed by Delhi University, derivation of 25% marks from the Internal Assessment conducted in the current academic year (2019-20), and the rest 75% marks represented by an average of the theory examinations attempted by the students in previous semesters.
- Since a majority of students put their best efforts in their final year, if deemed possible, a 10% increase in the average marks being derived from previous theory examinations can be granted to every student. This effort is to ensure that their GPA does not suffer and they can make up for the lost academic year/semester.
- Most importantly, regardless of the measures taken for evaluation of final year students, any degree(s) awarded to final year students must necessarily display the fact that students underwent an interrupted final semester/year due to a global pandemic (COVID-19). This must be stated unequivocally to ensure grading parity of the academic batch of 2019-20 with academic batches of previous and following years.
- Even after such assessment is granted, final year students should still have access to improvement examinations in the foreseeable future for their subjects, as is the case for regular provision of improvement examinations every odd and even semester. We wish to ensure equitable opportunity to those who would like to avail such a facility.
We firmly believe that university has the power to aid 3rd years effectively and justly and declare our results by streamlining existing systems, instead of making new systems suddenly retrospectively applicable on us, when all of us have already been thrown into a frenzy by the pandemic.
There are Universities which have already considered the above mentioned approach resulting in waiving off the examinations for the final years. Some of the Universities that have cancelled exams include the Maharastra University, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur etc. Since, Delhi University is yet to conduct the examinations, we feel that the above suggestions, if opted, will not only help the University but the students as well. Tough times call for supporting each other in such bizarre situations.
The digital divide amongst the students is already putting a large section in disadvantage, we kindly request you to understand the severity of the situation and devise appropriate measures.
This survey was conducted by the Student Unions of :
- Gargi College
- Keshav Mahavidyalay College
- Bhagini Nivedita College
- Lady Sri Ram College
- Lady Irwin college
- .Indraprastha college For women
- HansRaj College
- Sri Aurobindo College Morning
- Dyal Singh College Evening
- Lakshmibai college
- Ramjas college
- Mata sundri college for women
- Zakir Husain Delhi College
- Zakir Husain Delhi College (Evening)
- SRCC
- Hindu College
- Swami Shardhanand college
- Ramanujan College
- Deshbandhu College
- Kirorimal college
- Lakshmibai college
- Maharaja Agrasen College
- Sir Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce
- Shyama Prasad Mukherjee College
Follow us on Instagram (@DUAssassins) to keep yourself updated 24×7
