DU Open Book Exam: Sociology dept. suggests alternative method to evaluate students

The Department of Sociology wrote a letter to the University of Delhi suggesting an alternative method of evaluating students. 

Amid severe protests by students and teachers against the Delhi University’s Open Book Exam (OBE), one of the affiliated departments of DU suggested an alternative method of assessing the students. According to the suggestion, students should be evaluated on the basis of internal assessment and the previous semester’s average marks.

According to the official statement released by the University of Delhi, Open Book Exam will be conducted for the students of regular colleges/departments and also of the open school of learning.

On May 17, the head of the Sociology Department sent a letter to the department’s administration. Sharing her suggestion Rajni Palriwala wrote, "Based on the experiences of online teaching and making available digital course materials as well as the feedback from students regarding the same, the faculty has already sent its reservations on holding online examinations due to various impediments that students face. Students have not only expressed to us their extreme reservation to the holding of online examinations for the award of their degree but also holding of any exam without some face-to-face interaction with their teachers.”

In order keep students tension free amid such difficult times, the department stated, "in lieu of the end semester examination marks for the Semester-IV, each candidate will be awarded an estimate mark which will be the simple average of end semester examination marks obtained by that candidate in semesters l, II and Ill."

The letter added, "Students who wish to improve on their performance in the courses of semesters I and Ill may do so when the Ill semester examinations are held, as is the current practice. The span period for this graduating batch and all batches who were to take examinations in summer 2020 may be increased by one year.”

The department provided a fair suggestion to evaluate students without conducting any exam, "Most importantly, it will address the legitimate doubts and extreme anxiety expressed by students regarding connectivity and infrastructure problems and issues with the university portal," added the letter.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University revealed that more than 68 percent of students would not be able to take the online exams.

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