Delhi University: Proposed changes will reduce weight of semester exams, dilute degree, say teachers

NEW DELHI : Delhi University's cell for implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has proposed increasing the weightage assigned to internal assessments and splitting this segment into different components such as lectures and tutorials. This, a DU teachers' group has argued, will dilute the degree by reducing the weightage of semester-end examinations.

Teachers also said that the new internal assessment methods show “mindlessness” and “hurried implementation” of the new curriculum framework as it does not give clear directions on how to calculate internal marks. Their statement also points out the assessments are being discussed with just three weeks to go for the end of the first semester.

DU’s NEP Cell has made recommendations on various aspects of assessments including increasing the weightage of continuous mode of assessment, components of tutorials, and minimum attendance. The Delhi University Academic Council will discuss these recommendations tomorrow, January 25.

Teachers, criticising the new recommendations , said that discussing the internal assessment scheme when the semester is going to conclude in three weeks shows the “cavalier attitude” of the university administration towards academic matters.

“In yet another example of the mindlessness of the scheme and its hurried implementation when most of the teaching is already complete, the university lists composition of internal assessment with 25 percent weightage whereas the proposed weightage for internal assessment in the document is 30 percent and 20 percent weightage. How this is all to be calculated is not made clear,” the Democratic Teachers’ Front, a DU teachers’ organisation said in a statement.

Reduced weightage of semester exams

It also said that the new recommendations give less importance to semester-end examinations which have always had a weightage of at least 75 percent.

“The weightage to semester-end centralised DU examination for a theory based paper has remained as 75 percent in all past schemes including LoCF (implemented in 2019) and CBCS (implemented in 2015). The UGCF [Undergraduate Curriculum Framework] will reduce it to close to 56%. In the proposed scheme, the weightage of semester-end examination will be 90 marks out of a total of 160 marks,” the front said.

Teachers also said that splitting the internal assessments into so many components, such as different assessments for lectures and tutorials, will take away from the teaching learning process. They also said that with the increase in the tutorial size and class size, as decided by the administration this year, teachers having to teach a large number of students in a short time will impact the quality of the assessment.