NEW DELHI: The Delhi University’s School of Open Learning abruptly announced the cancellation of Saturday’s examination for the first-year BA and B.Com programmes while students were writing the paper and asked them to hand in their answer sheets.
The SOL examination scheduled for Sunday has been cancelled as well but the rest of the date sheet remains the same, university officials said, adding the dates for these two subjects would be notified soon.
Saturday was the first day of the examination for the students of the two programmes and it was supposed to be conducted in two shifts ‘ morning and evening. A senior university official said due to an “error”, all students had been assigned the morning shift, which is why the examination had to be cancelled.
Soon after the examination was cancelled, a notice of cancellation was put up outside the gates of the centres. Sangeeta, a first-year BA student, said she reached her designated centre on time and the examination began normally, but a few minutes later, students were informed about the cancellation.
“My examination centre was Miranda House. I reached on time, checked my seat and sat down. We filled up our details and question papers were distributed. We were given the allotted time to read the question paper,” she said.
“The answer sheets were distributed and as I picked up my pen, the invigilator told us that the exam has been cancelled. We were not given any reason,” she claimed. The university official said the examination for both Saturday and Sunday have been cancelled.
“The students will be issued new roll numbers. It was a goof-up by SOL. We are looking into it. We are determining whether it was a human error or that of a computer,” said Registrar Vikas Gupta.