Before the widespread protests against the new education system, which is set to replace the semester system across universities in India, could cool down, institutions in the country are faced with a new problem in the existing framework – a broken examination system. In Delhi University, protests have broken out against faulty mark-sheets because more than 400 final-year students failed in the sociology examination this year.
Students alleged that the possibility of such a horrendous result is close to zero, declined to accept the result and demonstrated outside the university to force an immediate reappraisal of the result.
While the university has waived off the Rs 1,000 fee for re-evaluation for these students assuring them of fairness this time around, the situation is particularly tricky for those who are in their final year as a backlog on their mark sheets could prevent them from finding jobs or admission into post-graduate courses.
Those in Delhi University's Shivaji College said that it would be wrong to think that this is one-off case as a large number of students from the college were failed in an inter-disciplinary subject.
“This is not a subjective case since all our classmates have been given an ER (Essential Reappear) in this subject with just three of them passing with a mere 30,” the students wrote. “Yes, the choice of re-evaluation and rechecking exists in the university but with such a massive failure of students we all feel that there is some error.”
The students are now demanding that the university re-evaluate papers on priority and “produce a fresh result”.
Exam woes
It would be wrong, however, to think that this is a one-off case and only restricted to Delhi University. More than a handful of universities are facing similar glitches in their examination systems which has raised concerns among academics and students alike.
In March, Mumbai University had to announce fresh examinations for its Bachelor of Education course after discrepancies were found in the results even as it revised scores of nearly 40% of the 8,000 students enrolled in the course. Even after revised results, many students were failed, and had to appear in a re-examination. But the trouble didn’t end there. To their further disappointment, seven days before the exams, many students were yet to receive admit cards or even a time table.
Not just university exams, even entrance examinations for professional courses are not free from discrepancies. The Common Law Admission Test, held online this year for the first time, was found to have multiple errors in the answer key leading to allotments of seats being put on hold, and a panel enquiring into the same.
Discrepancies in question papers and evaluation also plagued Maharashtra’s Common Entrance Test in April which is used by major B-schools in the state for their MBA entrances. Over 50,000 students who appeared for the exam expressed disappointment about the normalisation process which was used to adjust percentile scores of those appearing in different slots. However, those appearing in the first slot demanded re-evaluation of marks while many colleges denied admissions to students until the issue was resolved.
Solving the puzzle
While institutions across the country are reeling from one problem or the other in dealing with exams, Mangalore University has found a unique solution – penalising examiners for not performing efficiently.
Examination staff appointed by the university including superintendents, examiners, clerks, typists and even peons would have to henceforth be careful about their professional conduct as any malpractice would result in their having to appear in front of the Malpractices and Lapses Enquiry Committee appointed by the vice chancellor.
Expressing the hope that this would put an end to glitches in the process and glaring errors that sometimes creep in to the results of examinations, the Vice Chancellor of the university said that this is a welcome step. "The university will now have to ensure that rights of students are protected,” he was quoted as having said by the Times of India. “We do not want the future of students to be in jeopardy due to mistakes – knowing or otherwise – on part of examiners or examination staff.”
Too big to fail
While this could be an interesting solution to the widespread problem but teachers and administration in the DU argue that the problem runs deeper than that and the system on the whole has to be blamed.
“Examiners are partly responsible for how they deal with copies and failure of 400 students in one subject means that something went wrong somewhere but we are not sure what,” said Abha Dev Habib, member of the university’s Executive Council. “While it is true that some examiners could be in rush to check more copies and earn stipend, but pressure from above could have been behind such discrepancies too.”
Habib argued that even though the university has a rule of not allowing more than 25-30 examination copies to be checked by one teacher in a day, it is seldom adhered to. “Many teachers are often given two bundles to complete which are over 150 copies and that pressure would degrade quality of checking for sure,” she said. “There are over 1.5 lakh students in the university and each of them is writing four-five papers twice a year so you can well imagine the burden on teachers to clear the checking.”
What are the possible solutions then, if the scale of the university’s operations is too big to be handled by a limited number of teachers? A teacher of sociology requesting anonymity said that it is to ensure that right teachers are given right papers to check in the first place. “At times, we are given papers of subjects that we don’t even teach,” she said. “Answer keys can only help so much but if you don’t know the subject too well, how can you even be fair in marking?”
She, however, said that with the semester system, students are being marked liberally to hold their faith and prevent excessive backlogs and the pressure of re-evaluation requests. “This is uncanny, students are being given extra 10-15 marks across the board,” she said. “Even though nobody complains when they get extra marks, it becomes a problem if so many people are failed at large. This is detrimental to their future as an ER on the mark-sheet is like a blot on their hard work.”
Students alleged that the possibility of such a horrendous result is close to zero, declined to accept the result and demonstrated outside the university to force an immediate reappraisal of the result.
While the university has waived off the Rs 1,000 fee for re-evaluation for these students assuring them of fairness this time around, the situation is particularly tricky for those who are in their final year as a backlog on their mark sheets could prevent them from finding jobs or admission into post-graduate courses.
Those in Delhi University's Shivaji College said that it would be wrong to think that this is one-off case as a large number of students from the college were failed in an inter-disciplinary subject.
“This is not a subjective case since all our classmates have been given an ER (Essential Reappear) in this subject with just three of them passing with a mere 30,” the students wrote. “Yes, the choice of re-evaluation and rechecking exists in the university but with such a massive failure of students we all feel that there is some error.”
The students are now demanding that the university re-evaluate papers on priority and “produce a fresh result”.
Exam woes
It would be wrong, however, to think that this is a one-off case and only restricted to Delhi University. More than a handful of universities are facing similar glitches in their examination systems which has raised concerns among academics and students alike.
In March, Mumbai University had to announce fresh examinations for its Bachelor of Education course after discrepancies were found in the results even as it revised scores of nearly 40% of the 8,000 students enrolled in the course. Even after revised results, many students were failed, and had to appear in a re-examination. But the trouble didn’t end there. To their further disappointment, seven days before the exams, many students were yet to receive admit cards or even a time table.
Not just university exams, even entrance examinations for professional courses are not free from discrepancies. The Common Law Admission Test, held online this year for the first time, was found to have multiple errors in the answer key leading to allotments of seats being put on hold, and a panel enquiring into the same.
Discrepancies in question papers and evaluation also plagued Maharashtra’s Common Entrance Test in April which is used by major B-schools in the state for their MBA entrances. Over 50,000 students who appeared for the exam expressed disappointment about the normalisation process which was used to adjust percentile scores of those appearing in different slots. However, those appearing in the first slot demanded re-evaluation of marks while many colleges denied admissions to students until the issue was resolved.
Solving the puzzle
While institutions across the country are reeling from one problem or the other in dealing with exams, Mangalore University has found a unique solution – penalising examiners for not performing efficiently.
Examination staff appointed by the university including superintendents, examiners, clerks, typists and even peons would have to henceforth be careful about their professional conduct as any malpractice would result in their having to appear in front of the Malpractices and Lapses Enquiry Committee appointed by the vice chancellor.
Expressing the hope that this would put an end to glitches in the process and glaring errors that sometimes creep in to the results of examinations, the Vice Chancellor of the university said that this is a welcome step. "The university will now have to ensure that rights of students are protected,” he was quoted as having said by the Times of India. “We do not want the future of students to be in jeopardy due to mistakes – knowing or otherwise – on part of examiners or examination staff.”
Too big to fail
While this could be an interesting solution to the widespread problem but teachers and administration in the DU argue that the problem runs deeper than that and the system on the whole has to be blamed.
“Examiners are partly responsible for how they deal with copies and failure of 400 students in one subject means that something went wrong somewhere but we are not sure what,” said Abha Dev Habib, member of the university’s Executive Council. “While it is true that some examiners could be in rush to check more copies and earn stipend, but pressure from above could have been behind such discrepancies too.”
Habib argued that even though the university has a rule of not allowing more than 25-30 examination copies to be checked by one teacher in a day, it is seldom adhered to. “Many teachers are often given two bundles to complete which are over 150 copies and that pressure would degrade quality of checking for sure,” she said. “There are over 1.5 lakh students in the university and each of them is writing four-five papers twice a year so you can well imagine the burden on teachers to clear the checking.”
What are the possible solutions then, if the scale of the university’s operations is too big to be handled by a limited number of teachers? A teacher of sociology requesting anonymity said that it is to ensure that right teachers are given right papers to check in the first place. “At times, we are given papers of subjects that we don’t even teach,” she said. “Answer keys can only help so much but if you don’t know the subject too well, how can you even be fair in marking?”
She, however, said that with the semester system, students are being marked liberally to hold their faith and prevent excessive backlogs and the pressure of re-evaluation requests. “This is uncanny, students are being given extra 10-15 marks across the board,” she said. “Even though nobody complains when they get extra marks, it becomes a problem if so many people are failed at large. This is detrimental to their future as an ER on the mark-sheet is like a blot on their hard work.”
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