Panel to investigate errors in Delhi University’s SOL curriculum

Among the errors, the East India Company has been written as “Healthy Company” in a political science paper

The Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL) has constituted a committee to investigate errors flagged in its curriculum by DU’s Academic Council (AC), university officials said.

The university said that SOL hired content writers from reputed universities from across the country to draft the self-learning material (SLM). (HT Archive)

In a statement issued on Saturday, the varsity said that a review committee with educationists has been formed to investigate the errors. Among the errors, the East India Company has been written as “Healthy Company” in a political science paper. The Montague-Chelmsford Report has been written as “Mountain Dew Chelmsford Report” in the Hindi material for the BA programme minor paper. Moreover, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel has been misspelt as “Sarddar Patel” in the general elective paper for BA (Hons) courses.

The university said that SOL hired content writers from reputed universities from across the country to draft the self-learning material (SLM). The content writers were shortlisted after interviews with senior professors of the respective subjects. “SOL is open to any improvements, modifications, suggestions in the SLM,” the university said.

Maya John, who was among the dissenters in the meeting, said that strong objections were raised with respect to the quality of the SLMs. “It was highlighted that several SLMs for semesters one and two, which were approved in the AC meetings convened on November 22 last year and May 26 this year, are of poor quality and thereby, such materials need to be thoroughly reviewed,” John said.

“It was also emphasized that thousands of SOL students depend heavily on SLMs, given that they have minimal access to direct classroom teaching. Therefore, such materials cannot be of poor quality,” she added.