The High Court has asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to submit its stand on a plea alleging inadequate preparation in the introduction of Choice Based Credit System (CDCS) in the Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL).
Justice Prathiba M. Singh also directed DU to submit the report of the committee, appointed pursuant to any order of the court, for correcting all the defects in the course material.
The court’s direction came on a plea by five first-year students at SOL contending the hard copies of proper course material have not been provided with either for the first semester or for the second semester. The students said study material dispatched to the students was incomplete and defective in nature.
They further claimed that the course material which has been uploaded contain several defects, due to which it was virtually impossible for SOL students to give the examinations and to upload the answer sheets within the deadline.
On June 4, DU had issued an examination notification for conduct of online examinations due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Under the system, evaluation of papers for the first and second-semester students was to be based on online assignments.
The question papers have been already uploaded on June 26 and the last date for submission and uploading of answer sheets was initially on July 11. On Friday, the DU’s counsel informed the court that the deadline for submission of answer sheets has been extended to July 15.
The university, in an affidavit, also claimed that more than 50,000 students of SOL have already submitted their assignments online. It is also stated that hard-copies of the study material have been made available to approximately one lakh students for Semester-I and approximately 92,000 students for Semester-II.
Additionally, it submitted that about 3,20,000 students have hit the SOL website for online study material during the lockdown period.
The students in their main petition have sought quashing of the implementation of CBCS, introduced in the SOL. They asked for the appointment of an eminent educationist to make recommendations as to whether the CBCS should be discontinued and be replaced with the annual-mode of examinations, as done hitherto.
