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No exams for DU 1st, 2nd year students, evaluation on internal assessment, previous performance
New Delhi: Delhi University (DU) on Thursday cancelled the upcoming semester examinations for first- and second-year undergraduate students and first-year postgraduate
New Delhi: 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 Non-Collegiate 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.
DU currently has around 900,000 students.
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.
Earlier, the 25-mark internal evaluation for regular DU students had three components: class test, tutorial test, and attendance. In May this year, the varsity announced that class and tutorial tests would be replaced by internal assignments in the current semesters, and will be conducted over e-mail. Full marks were to be granted for the attendance component for the period of the lockdown. The university had extended the date of submission of internal assessments, practicals, viva-voce, projects, and fieldwork by June 12.
In previous years, there were no internal assessments for SOL and NCWEB students, and they were marked completely on the annual examination. However, the university has, as part of the one-time policy, laid down guidelines for internal assessments in these programmes. SOL and NCWEB will decide the schedule and guidelines for the assignment-based evaluations for their own students and update them accordingly.
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 Rs 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 internet data packs. I don’t even have the reading material to study or submit the assignments. I can’t even visit friends and borrow material from them due to the virus scare.”
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 currently living in Jammu & Kashmir’s Kathua district said, “The 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. But this mode of evaluation is still a lesser concern than appearing for open-book exams.”
Former academic council member Pankaj Garg, who teaches at Rajdhani College, said final-year students could also be evaluated along similar lines. “Many students who received online assignments have not been able to submit them because of internet connectivity in their home towns or villages. However, internal evaluation is a continuous process and has been going on since January in our colleges. This is why it is the best solution in the current times. Final-year students have already appeared for five semesters and the same formula should be applied for them as well.”
