The dust seems to have settled over Delhi University’s (DU) controversial decision to scrap the re-evaluation process from next year. The decision came after reports that a section of teachers was deliberately marking students poorly to prove that the new system of evaluation was a failure. This recent development has brought relief to thousands of students.
Jessica Jojo, a second-year student of St Stephen’s college, says, “I am glad that we will continue to have the re-assessment system; doing away with it would have been disastrous because there are several mistakes in the results. Re-assessment of answer scripts is a student-friendly measure and it has benefitted a lot of students.”
However, some students are apprehensive about the increased fees of re-evaluation. Priya Rajput from the university’s School of Open Learning says, “The fee for getting our papers re-evaluated has been increased from Rs. 750 to Rs. 1000. It has been done purposely to discourage the students so that they can finally do away with the system of re-assessment. Anyhow... I don’t think it benefits the students and we end up wasting our money in the end.”
“A major chunk of students in DU comes from outside Delhi and economically weaker section. The current amount of re-evaluation is quite big for such students who survive on pocket money,” adds Jojo.
{{/usCountry}}“A major chunk of students in DU comes from outside Delhi and economically weaker section. The current amount of re-evaluation is quite big for such students who survive on pocket money,” adds Jojo.
{{/usCountry}}Welcoming the current decision, Vaibhav Maheshwari of the Shri Ram College of Commerce says “...this system definitely works. It is an alternative for students who are not satisfied with results. I got my corporate law paper re-evaluated in the first semester and 15 marks were increased. I know many other students who got more than 30 marks after re-evaluation of their answer sheets. If the fees will be decreased, then everybody will go for re-assessment just for the sake of it and it will put a burden on the teachers, resulting in chaos at evaluation centres.”
BK Dass, professor of mathematics at DU, says, “We don’t intend to discourage students. Central evaluation is still taking place, depending on the course and subjects being offered. But when there are not many specialists available for one subject, then we are not left with any other option. Currently, there is no uniformity; as soon as we achieve it we will have a better system in place.”