University of Delhi: Continuing its dynamic participation against the provision of Open Book Examinations (OBE) in the University of Delhi, the National Students’ Union of India submitted a memorandum of solutions to the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal and the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Mr. Anil Baijal on May 26, inviting their involvement in the matter. The Dean of Examinations at the University, Vinay Gupta, has, however, refrained from revoking the administration’s decision to conduct online examinations despite vetoes from 12 out of 16 Deans.
While NSUI claims to have advocated an active indulgence in seeking the scrapping of the provision by the University’s administration for 2 months, the alleged hostile disposition of the administration necessitated it to organize the online protests against the decision. It trended the hashtag #PromoteStudentsSaveFuture on May 24 on Twitter garnering over 70k tweets by the students. The wake of the pandemic and the disastrous Amphan cyclone has made the availability of the study resources difficult for the students. The lack of access to technology and stable network connectivity has posed a hurdle for many students to apply for the examination form and subsequently, appear for the OBE. The University has not taken the inability of Kashmiri students to access 4G Internet connection into consideration.
A petition drafted by the organization has been circulating to procure signatures of the students who oppose this decision that was allegedly endorsed without a dialogue with the real stakeholders, i.e., the teachers and the students and over 1,15,000 students have signed it as of now. Citing the example of institutions like IITs and Amity University which have ended the current semester and promoted all the student’s sans examinations by accounting for their performance in the previous semesters, NSUI seeks similar steps by the University’s administration.
NSUI also took a jibe at the daily ineffectual activities at the university that could never be carried out effectively and questioned the University’s capability to organize a new form of examination without any prior experience or experiment.
