Soaring semester marks in DU: Teachers cry scam

Updated on: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The high semester scores this season have triggered outrage among DU academia. While students are on cloud nine, the teachers are fuming. And the question doing the rounds is - Has DU gone too far to prove that the semester system is the best? Many teachers have gone to the extent of calling it a 'mammoth marks scam' and have shot off letters to the examination branch. The undergraduate results have also earned notorious epithets - highly unusual, academic corruption , please-all policy and outrageous scores.

Letters of protest (copies of which are with TOI) indicate that moderation has been done across the board, instead of need-based distribution of grace marks. Faculty members SRCC, Miranda House and St Stephen's are now planning to file RTI applications to review answersheets . They claim marks were inflated after evaluation.

Many teachers claim the DU administration resorted to irrational inflation of marks and has put a question mark on the credibility of results. "This will devalue degrees . The scam happened at three levels. First, meetings were held in many departments to unofficially decide on a reduced syllabus. Second , question papers were diluted. And third, examiners were instructed to leniently give marks," said a faculty member of Miranda House, Abha D Habib.
Terming this as academic corruption, associate professor of physics, Dyal Singh College, Naveen Gaur, said: "Many teachers have checked more than 100 scripts per day even as the norm is a maximum of 35."

In October, Gaur wrote to the DU administration and the physics department objecting to the proposal of setting an easy paper. Gaur along with Habib of Miranda House had protested against this proposal. "I still feel the question paper has been easy," he said. Several teachers have submitted notes of dissent to the exam branch.

Vijaya Venkataraman of the department Germanic and Romance studies said she was part of the moderation team for BA (honours). In a letter, she protested against granting of acrossthe-board grace marks. She felt this should be based on the need of the student for passing in individual papers . Fourteen history teachers who were examiners of course I and II, BA (honours) history, first semester also submitted a memorandum on "dilution of academic standards".

"The quantum leap in marks has no bearing on the actual standards observed during evaluation," said an examiner. Teachers are also claiming that marks in the result sheets are not reflecting the scores given by examiners.'

Avinash Jha, a teacher of Sri Ram College of Commerce even made a public disclaimer on a social networking site. She said: "Declaration - I have nothing to do with course structure, content, teaching, question paper and marking of answersheets of Economics Honours first semester. I am just scared that what would happen when semester reaches third year where I teach."

Times of India

Soaring semester marks in DU: Teachers cry scam

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