ECA trials should be held with precautions, says DU Executive Council

NEW DELHI: Delhi University Executive Council members on Monday demanded that the trials for extra-curricular activities (ECA) should be held with all precautions for prevention of coronavirus spread.

The issue was raised at the Emergency EC meeting held on Monday. The varsity had decided that the admissions to the ECA category will be held on the basis of certificates.

This year, DU had decided to not hold the ECA admissions, barring those having NCC and NSS certificates in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was decided in July that admissions under 12 categories, including music, dance, divinity, yoga, will be held this year on the basis of certificates.

Executive Council member Rajesh Jha said they have received many letters from gurus, artists and experts, who suggested that the trials for ECA quota admissions can be held with the precautions required for COVID-19.

"Merely dependence on the certificates cannot be a sound basis of objective evaluation of the performance-based artistic skills. There should be trials for these disciplines. "In order to avoid crowding and ensure physical distancing, colleges should be allowed to conduct the ECA selection process and admissions as the admissions are statutorily within the jurisdiction of the college staff councils," he said.

Online open-book exams

Jha also said that the issue of online open-book exams being conducted by "bypassing the statutory bodies - Academic Council and Executive Council" - was also raised. "There is a very serious deviation that the anonymity of the answer scripts has not been maintained. The university has in the past upheld the ethical aspect of protecting the identity of the student (name and college) on the answer scripts," he said.

However, this time, the name of the student is flashed on the screen when the examiner opens the portal, which is a "serious compromise with confidentiality and goes against the principles of fairness and justice", he said.

Jha said that the "examination was exclusionary in nature". Among regular students, around four per cent students did not appear in the first phase of open-book exam, which increased to 13 per cent in case of School of Open Learning and 23.5-24 per cent in case of persons with disabilities students, he said.

"Many teachers are reporting to having been assigned scripts that are not of their subjects," he said. The Executive Council members also demanded that the varsity should bring an ordinance to absorb temporary and ad hoc teachers. "In violation of its own ordinance, DU has thousands of ad hoc and temporary teachers, who have been toiling hard for years without any increment, leaves and any opportunity for profession upgradation.

"Even the statutory maternity leave is not available to the female ad hoc teachers. The pandemic situation has further aggravated their uncertainties," Jha said.

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