Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) in recent administrative feedback has released a series of suggestive measures for the Delhi University (DU) administration to consider while tackling the academic hurdles brought on by the global pandemic.
On 14th April 2020, DUTA released an administrative feedback to DU regarding the handling of the global pandemic situation of COVID-19. In the released statement, DUTA points out the faults in the university’s semester and examination schedule, pointing out how neither was well-equipped to handle a crisis as such, leading to a collapse in the teaching semester. “The pandemic has also exposed the failure of the semester system with its tight teaching-learning and examination schedule to be able to weather any crisis such as the present.”
DUTA pointed out the problems with the online classes and e-resources provided by the university and how lacking the method is and definitely not at a capacity to replace or make up for in-class lectures any time soon. Given our student demography, it is important to recognize that a large section of students come from outside Delhi and that an equally significant number comes from underprivileged backgrounds, and the environment at their homes is unlikely to be conducive for learning. The University and colleges have so far not been able to collect data on how many students have accessibility to the e-resources and lectures shared by teachers. Given the diverse population of students to whom the University of Delhi caters to and the student strength, the means and modes of assessment and examination adopted in the context of the lockdown should ensure that the solutions offered do not further marginalize the already marginalized sections of students or create a situation where large sections of students lose out due to the circumstances they face,” the feedback statement read. They also pointed out the fact that most students who had gone back home during the mid-semester break (which had included Holi) had not carried their textbooks and reading materials with them.
DUTA, therefore, concluded that online examinations for the university would not be viable options, owing to the lack of resources and inaccessibility to many students of the university.
DUTA has offered the following suggestions to the administration:
- Examinations to be held only after teaching days lost during quarantine period are recovered, with priority being given to final year students. DUTA suggested readjusting the holidays for summer accordingly.
- Final year students should be provided with provisional certificates with details of their SGPA and CGPA.
- If opened in a phased manner, colleges should give priority to final year students with exams being held 15 days after re-opening.
- Schedule of the new academic year be adjusted according to the course requirements of current batches.
- Considering shifting the examinations of UG level courses to an annual mode, in order to properly equip the administration for a similar crisis in the future.
- Universities should hold meetings of all statutory bodies in order to prepare for dealing with the situation. Students should be kept informed of all measures being taken, even if they’re temporary.
“In the case of the University of Delhi, which caters to lakhs of students, we firmly believe that attempts must be made to ensure that (i) students enrolled in regular programmes be taught and evaluated as per the laid down framework (ii) essential classroom teaching to SOL and NCWEB be completed as per the requirements and commitment of these programmes and (iii) conduct of online centralized examinations be ruled out completely as the University neither has the infrastructure nor the capability of providing/ensuring level playing field in terms of accessibility and ease to the diverse student population it caters to,” the feedback read.
Feature Image Credits: Niharika Dabral for DU Beat
Shreya Juyal
Comments are closed.