The Students’ Union of the Campus Law Centre, Delhi has written an open letter to the Judges and Administrators, urging them to take steps for cancellation of the Online Open Book Exams, proposed to be conducted by the Delhi University.
The Union states that the conduct of online OBE is “discriminatory”, considering the online infrastructure government colleges and its students are equipped with.
They state that this idea ignores the existence of huge gap in wealth distribution in the country and proceeds on the “utopian fiction” of availability of secure, stable and fast internet connection and access to smart devices with everyone.
The Delhi University examination was scheduled to be held on July 10 but have now been postponed till August 15.
As per the Students’ Union, the three-hour window stipulated by University is totally “inadequate, insensitive and inconsiderate” of issues in conduct of OBE online.
So far as the Mock Tests conducted by the University to familiarize the students with the DU portal are concerned, the Union wrote,
“Attempting exams on the dysfunctional online platform provided by Delhi University is impossible for some students’ and onerous for others.”
As per the letter, the mock tests were “riddled” with blatant errors.
“Some students were unable to access the portal (due to vital credentials not being supplied). Uploading the answer scripts proved to be another insurmountable challenge, with unresponsive servers crashing abruptly. Uploading a massive number of sheets in a short span of time further proved to be a herculean task and was fraught with chances of inducing a grievous error,” the letter stated.
Further, the relief of offline exams for students who are unable to conform to the requirements of the online examination is totally “ill-founded”.
Also Read: Delhi University agrees to hold Open Book Exam between August 10-31
“Considering the uncertain circumstances prevailing in pandemic it is not possible to provide a definite timeline for the conduct of offline exams. Moreover, most of the outstation students in Delhi University live in rented accommodation around campus and due to COVID 19 many have vacated their accommodations to lighten up the burden of rent. Imagining that DU conducts offline exams for students in September which are obviously not going to be one day exam like a competition exam, the students will be faced with the problem of finding temporary accommodation to appear for exams,”the letter stated
They have therefore requested the administration to opt for an “alternate” method of assessment whereby students are promoted on the basis of the performance in the previous semesters, by taking the aggregate score for five semesters and extrapolating them to calculate the marks for the final semester.
After conclusion of the court hearing today regarding OBE , the University has been directed to expedite the conduct of the examinations.
The matter is already under consideration before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court comprised of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad.
Read the letter here:
