Students of the School of Open Learning, Delhi University, protested outside the office of the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Monday, November 11th, under Krantikari Yuva Sangathan.
According to them, the Choice Based Credit System, which is already applicable in the regular courses provided by DU, was implemented very hastily in the course set for SOL students and therefore, now they are demanding a rollback of the same.
The students are also worried since their exams are due next month and their teachers are also not sure about the syllabus. The statement provided by the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan also emphasized on the ‘lack of infrastructure, teaching support and study material available for the students’ and blamed the university officials for ‘playing with the future of over 1.5 lakh students’.
Few months ago as well students went on an indefinite hunger strike to show their disapproval regarding the decision of introducing the CBCS from this year onwards.
In response to the strike, Officer of Special Duty, Ramesh Bhardwaj had said that this move is ‘a necessary step to ensure that the degree issued by the SOL does not lose its validity’ and mentioned that ‘as per the center, a university cannot be running two separate modes simultaneously. In case the university does not switch over this year, the degree would not be recognized’. He also assured the students that they would get the soft copies of the study material soon.
CBCS was introduced in the University of Delhi in 2016. According to the UGC website, ‘The CBCS provides an opportunity for the students to choose courses from the prescribed courses comprising core, elective/minor or skill based courses. The courses can be evaluated following the grading system, which is considered to be better than the conventional marks system.’
