NEW DELHI: As many as 106 teachers and professors of the Delhi University (DU) on Friday wrote a letter to dean (examinations) Vinay Gupta, urging him to review the varsity’s decision to hold the online open book examinations (OBE) for the final-year students. The varsity has decided to conduct the OBE in view of the situation due to the coronavirus pandemic, despite opposition from students and teachers.
On Thursday, the university announced that it will not be conducting examinations for more than three lakh first and second-year undergraduate and over 12,000 first-year postgraduate students.The students would be promoted based on 50% marks for internal assessment and assignments and the rest on scores of the previous semesters.
The teachers demanded the 50-50 formula for the final-year students as well. The university has decided to conduct online the OBE from July 1The decision to hold the OBE should be reviewed as there is a lack of institutional help in carrying such an examination. There is “uneven teaching”, an absence of laboratory/practical components, and a lack of consultations, the teachers said in the letter.
According to a conducted by the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA), out of 51,000 students, only 50 percent of them have online access to notes or study material, 75 percent are working on their smartphones and only 27 percent could attend classes on Zoom app.
“The careers of lakhs of students are at stake. They are under tremendous pressure. Even if they manage to appear in the OBE, this would create a division between the marginalised section of students who can’t afford internet or smartphones and those who belong to well-to-do families. The latter can even hire agencies to appear in the OBE,” said Dr Pankaj Kumar, a mathematics professor at Rajdhani College.
Another teacher, on condition of anonymity, said the OBE will be “highly discriminatory” and unfair to a large section of students.