Scream and shout or be Silent. It won’t make any difference because the one in authority is unmoved. They remain dormant and turn a deaf ear towards us. But that is not the matter because you are a student and must not behave violently, so stay calm, be disciplined and have patience. May be they will listen, if not today then tomorrow or some other time. But, don’t lose your hope. You understand?! Hope has to be there, of the fact that something will change.
Protest, Protest, Protest. This was the situation in one of the colleges of University of Delhi, named as Daulat Ram College (DRC). The protest was against the In-house examinations which were started last year, i.e., 2017. According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, the in-house exams that happen in every semester has a weightage of 25 marks out of the 100 marks, which includes 10 marks for assignment/ presentation, 10 marks for class test and 5 marks for attendance. According to the new system which was voluntarily introduced last year in few colleges of University of Delhi, like Kalindi college, Matasundari college and Daulat Ram college that the students have to prepare for a 50 mark question paper for the 10 mark class test which will be evaluated and graded on the scale of 10. The syllabus is 50% of the total course and the exams will happen continuously without any break. According to the Principal this is beneficial for us and will help us to improve our academics. This was not accepted by the students of DRC especially the Humanities stream because the grading leads to a very less score which is not more than 6.5 or 6.7 per paper. The syllabus is too vast and it is nearly impossible to even revise the whole of it in such a short time period. Earlier, it was easy to score more due to the sufficient time period, gaps in between the examinations and limited amount of syllabus. But now, it has created too much pressure on the students which is affecting them psychologically and exhaust physically due to sleep deprived studies. The effects are futile and create a hurdle in their future endeavours.
The students raised slogans, boycotted the exams and sat on the protest for three days with a hope that the administrations will rollback this new system and bring back the previous one. But as you know it is always difficult to abolish or bring a change in something that has become a part of the system, you have to struggle and wait with the hope and believe that someday the mindset will change and you will be successful. There have been some changes in the examination format on a temporary basis and the final format will be designed as and when the in-house exams are over for the current semester, says the Principal. I think we were able to create some pressure on the administration and bring them to this situation of dimunition. However, the final decision remains upheld and we hope that it might bring some happiness to the withered flowers that were deprived of light, water and fresh air and doesn’t sum up our efforts to something fruitless.
