After protests from students and teachers regarding the decision to conduct online, open-book exam, Delhi University released guidelines for the examinations on Monday, June 1. The guidelines say that students can give final year exams from Information and communications technology (ICT) based infrastructures, including Common Service Center (CSC) located across the country. They also claim that writing the examinations remotely will require “limited access to internet”.
Students and teachers have continued to argue that open book exams are not feasible as many students do not have access to internet and computers.
“The students may contact in advance with their departments through e-mode to avail ICT based infrastructure for examination...students can avail the facilities available at Common Service Centres (CSCs) in the nearest location of their residence,” says the DU document.
"The University of Delhi is bound to protect the interests of those students who are residing in areas like Jammu and Kashmir and other such areas all over India which lack internet and hardware facility required for the OBE and have struck up at their places due to COVID-19 pandemic. To facilitate such students the University of Delhi as a major measure, has finalized to engage Common Service Centres (CSCs),” the DU guidelines added.
DU Exam Guidelines
According to the university guidelines, students will be given three hours to complete the OBE exam-- two hours for answering questions and one hour for downloading question papers and uploading answer sheets. Disabled students will be allotted five hours to complete the exam.
The university also informed that guidelines related to the intermediate exams for all streams including Non-Collegiate Women's Education Board (NCWEB) and School of Open Learning (SoL) students will be notified by June 5.
DU also announced that students will be able to appear for improvement exams as per the schedule of semester exams.
"The final year students who have backlog in their previous semester...shall re-appear for the same as per the schedule of examinations along with the fourth semester examinations," DU said in its guidelines.
Not ‘Equal Opportunity' For All Students
After the release of guidelines, students' group Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, or KYS, issued a statement opposing OBE saying that it does not provide equal opportunity for all students.
“The notification by DU does not provide equality of opportunity to the students...a large number of students neither themselves have the internet facility and nor are there enough functional Common Service Centres (CSC)...in different parts of the country,” KYS said in a statement.
“The internet requirement completely ignores that a large majority of students, especially those studying in SOL do not have access to functional computers, laptops, and even smartphones to take the examinations,” the statement by KYS added.
