Result woes for DU’s Open Distance Learning (ODL) students
09/18/2015
Students of Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL) are a worried lot. They were earlier concerned about late declaration of results by SOL which marred their chances to secure seats in regular courses results after admissions to major universities were over. Now, their problems are related to major discrepancies in SOL results.
Some students allege they have been marked ‘absent’ even though they wrote the exams. They said they were shocked to see the remarks ‘NA’ in their results online. A number of students from a north Delhi examination centre were also declared ‘fail’ in several subjects. Commerce student Manisha Jha’s online report card says ‘result later, if necessary,’ and Jha is at her wit’s end trying to understand what could have gone wrong as she had studied hard and attempted all her papers. “I do not understand how this could be possible when I appeared for all my exams and performed reasonably well,” she says.
Chetna Shrivastava, another commerce student, is also upset about her scores. “I did not expect such low scores and even got a zero in one subject. My report card says ‘failed’ in the part two exam. I was quite confident about my preparedness for the papers and I am sure that there is something wrong in the scoring. Getting a zero either means leaving the answer sheet blank or writing all the wrong answers and I didn’t do any such thing,” she says.
Another student (roll number 13-1-05-006458) is demanding a reevaluation of papers saying her scores (she has been declared ‘fail’) are nowhere close to what she expected. “A majority of students who took the exams at SM Jain Modern Senior Secondary School in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh have either been declared failed or have been marked absent. Among these are students who were confident that they would between 70 and 75%,” she says.
Students also allege that they approached SOL authorities for a solution but were ignored. They also submitted a memorandum to the DU chancellor with the names and roll numbers of nearly 40 students, asking for quick action, including reevaluation and immediate declaration of results for those in the ‘NA’ and ‘result declared, if necessary’ categories.
A copy of the memorandum is with HT Education.
When contacted, SOL authorities refrained from saying anything on the matter. “The SOL examination is dealt by the Delhi Universtity exam branch and SOL has no role in the process or checking of copies,” says CS Dubey, executive director, SOL.
The results are available on the SOL website and interestingly, each student’s report carries a disclaimer which says that the university or SOL are not responsible for any inadvertent errors in the results being published. Despite repeated attempts, dean of examinations at DU did not respond to any queries on the matter.
Students’ charter of demands
- Rollback of the choice-based credit system (CBCS) in DU for parity in the undergraduate courses being run in the university and SOL
- Infrastructure development, including building construction with funds allocated by UGC and not by fees collected from the SOL students
- Introduction of examination reforms so that a valuable year of SOL students does not go waste
- Admission deadline for postgraduation courses offered by DU be extended till SOL results are declared
- Eighty new colleges be started accommodate all distance learning students in regular courses. Till then, provision should be made for evening classes in the regular colleges
- Choice of basic honours courses to SOL students. Starting of BA Hindi (hons), BA history (hons), BA economics (hons), BA sociology (hons)
- Library facilities, access to ECA, sports, etc. at par with the regular students, to all SOL students accommodated in the regular colleges
- Bus pass facility be given to all SOL students for all routes. The university authorities must write to DTC to ensure the same
- Quality and frequency of the Personal Contact Programme at SOL be improved
By Gauri Kohli