The Delhi University (DU) finally began its online open book examination (OBE) on 10 August. However, criticism has only grown with the OBE. Amid a global pandemic and the consequent disruption of daily life, students have been one of the worst hit populations all over the world. This promptly led educational
Most of them returned to their homes because of the pandemic. Travelling to the city when the pandemic is reaching a peak is unthinkable.
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Each year, lakhs of students from all over the country come to the National Capital Region (NCR) for a chance to study in DU. DU is a safe haven for students to learn, interact with some of the country’s best and avail opportunities that are not available anywhere else. Its advocacy for inclusivity makes it possible for students from diverse backgrounds to study here. According to reports, 50 per cent of its students belong to the SC, ST and OBC categories from all over the country.
The availability of electricity and good internet connectivity that the city offers is deemed a luxury in most parts of India that these students come from.
Ignoring this and going ahead with the exams are discriminatory to say the least, and thus is the OBE’s unpopularity. With the exams underway, students have complained about the issues they are constantly facing. Underprepared and receiving no counselling on how to write an OBE, many have resorted to copying down copious amounts of notes made from whatever study material is available to them. Some students had to plan the exam days ahead, making sure that batteries wouldn’t die in the middle of an exam or staying over at a friend’s or relative’s place with better electricity and internet connectivity. Sometimes this involved travelling to the nearest town and writing exams in cyber cafes. The biggest worry is not writing the exam, but uploading it. The uploading process involves taking picture of each page of the answer sheet and scanning them, compressing them to the required size and uploading them. A single page sometimes takes a good many minutes to be scanned and compressed. Multiply that by 30-40 pages. Multiply the frustration too. The balance hangs on having a good enough smart phone, electricity, internet connectivity and no technical glitches on DU’s part. DU did make more than its fair share of mistakes. There are reports of a department forgetting to register itself for the online exams making students wait, while they worked on the issue. Questions were uploaded before the exam or half an hour into the exam, uploading the wrong questions being some of them. DU’s server crashed everyday of the exam. On one occasion, when even the varsity’s email crashed during paper submission, a nodal officer asked students to mail the university their grievances. Reports of students openly cheating in their WhatsApp groups with some being pressured to share answer scripts in the name of friendship have also surfaced.
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Every intra and interstate travel requires a 14 -day quarantine. Additionally, the paying guests (PGs), rents and hostels won’t want to let back the students at this time. It is financially limiting too. Presently, if students decide to forego the exams in order to avoid the risk to their lives and that of their families and because of financial limitations; the decision will seem like a folly after the pandemic ends and the desperation for a job grows because of the worsening economic conditions. We are bound to see a rise in mental health issues among the student community in the next few months.
DU has let its students down. None of its decisions justify its claims of upholding the interests of the students or maintaining the sanctity and standards of examination. Now due to no fault of theirs, some students will get their degrees later than their classmates or will not get them at all this year; robbing them of equal opportunities and creating inequality based on circumstances and socio-economic divides. All because the university could not respond to the challenge thrown by the pandemic in a more resourceful and creative way. Citing desperate measures for desperate times, they have forced students to meekly comply for the worse. If the university goofs this up, can students ask for a redressal? Lakhs of students will suffer the consequence of this incompetence in the wake of the pandemic. There is a need for concrete laws that protect their interests. After all, they are the highest stakeholders of the institution, and ultimately of the nation’s future.
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