(edited version of this article has been published in Mail Today 6/6/2010 edition on page 4 http://epaper.mailtoday.in/Details.aspx?boxid=5445921&id=37546&issuedate=662010 ).
We have seen it happening before our eyes when a popular course such as B.Sc. (General) was being ruined before us by the earlier Vice-Chancellor Dr. Deepak Nayyar who changed it to B.Sc. (Programme). Now we are on the verge of witnessing the same fate destined for the other Science courses. I remember, only few years ago I was present in a meeting of science teachers that was called by Prof. S.K.Tandon for imposing a structural change in all the science courses. It was vehemently opposed by the teachers led by Late Dr. Swaminathan of St. Stephens. Forcing a bio-student to study mathematics and a non-medical science student to study bio-papers compulsorily was pointed out as one of the major reason of concern and it was warned that this factor itself had a potential to compel students to stay away from joining this course. Teachers were able to resist its implementation but unfortunately the whole resistance was cunningly interpreted as an opposition with regard to Honours courses and the same structure was clandestinely imposed on the B.Sc.(General) course. All nightmares that the teachers had visualized in the meeting have come true for the course. The result is everybody to see as the cut-off percentages have dropped alarmingly only for this course and majority of colleges are now unable to fill up the seats allotted to them. However we all know that Prof. Tandon was rewarded with the post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor after that.
In the current case, our present Vice-Chancellor seems to have written his own ‘bible’ and wants everybody to follow the same without questioning its utility, importance, relevance, desirability and feasibility. He seems to have got such a fixation with interdisciplinary courses that he thinks that all those who have otherwise a very good grasp on Zoology and Botany are absolutely worthless if they have not studied undergraduate mathematics. His ‘bible’ predicts that the Semester System is so important that even if it is taught by unwilling teachers and handled by incompetent authority present in the university and the examinations, it will solve all problems gripping the Delhi University education system. He believes that just because the UK and USA have it and just because the government ‘thinks?’ it should be there, the semester system should be adopted. The fact, that his ‘bible’ conveniently ignores, is the common knowledge that there are many foreign university ready to pay huge sum of seed money as registration charges and are forcing the HRD ministry and the Government to succumb to their diktats. They are willing to open corridors in the name of establishing educational institutions and will engage themselves in luring the Indian students studying undergraduate courses in Indian universities to encourage lateral shifts to similar courses at their campus. Only they are going to be benefited immensely if our university system collapses and in the process exposes our inability to handle the inherent difficulty and unmanageable contradictions associated with the semester system in our university environment. Our university education will be dumped to a corner that will be similar to the space occupied by the government schools in primary and secondary educations. We would just become irrelevant and they just want that. Their target seems to be to hurt the enviable crowd-pulling-ability of the maddening admission-seekers’-rush of our university.
I would like simple answers to the following open queries from those who have never bothered to answer any of these questions and even shied away from a much desirable debate in the Academic Council.
· In our university system, admissions are allowed till September. And this should not be stopped since colleges must be given chance to fill their vacant seats that are left by a majority of students availing the opportunity to move into either a better college or a better course. Admissions particularly in science courses get stabilized only in September as they get a chance to move to an engineering/medical college outside our university. Can anybody let me know that in the semester system how the hell they are supposed to get prepared for the semester examinations just after getting admitted in September? In our system at least first year of science courses should be annual even if somebody is hell-bent on imposing the semester system. For this reason the semester system can be successfully and somewhat meaningfully forced only in the second and third year.
· Can they provide a list of those benefits that can be achieved only in semester system but neither in an annual system and also nor in a system of continuous evaluation of students based on weekly tests? The fact remains that a system is never good or bad in absolute sense but one will have to assess that how frequently can examinations be held in a university having same course running in fifty plus colleges with number of students counting over several tens of thousands.
· In our university system where preparations, conduct and evaluation occupy whole year of the examination department for annual exam what steps they have taken to wrap the whole process in three to four months?We all know that due to some unavoidable local problems (such as a teacher going on a long leave or appointment of a fresh teacher taking inordinately long time while trying to follow the complex process being adopted by the university) appointment of a fresh teacher invariably gets delayed by a few months. In an annual system a fresh teacher always gets a chance to complete the syllabus by engaging some extra classes but how will this be possible in a semester system?
In the current case, our present Vice-Chancellor seems to have written his own ‘bible’ and wants everybody to follow the same without questioning its utility, importance, relevance, desirability and feasibility. He seems to have got such a fixation with interdisciplinary courses that he thinks that all those who have otherwise a very good grasp on Zoology and Botany are absolutely worthless if they have not studied undergraduate mathematics. His ‘bible’ predicts that the Semester System is so important that even if it is taught by unwilling teachers and handled by incompetent authority present in the university and the examinations, it will solve all problems gripping the Delhi University education system. He believes that just because the UK and USA have it and just because the government ‘thinks?’ it should be there, the semester system should be adopted. The fact, that his ‘bible’ conveniently ignores, is the common knowledge that there are many foreign university ready to pay huge sum of seed money as registration charges and are forcing the HRD ministry and the Government to succumb to their diktats. They are willing to open corridors in the name of establishing educational institutions and will engage themselves in luring the Indian students studying undergraduate courses in Indian universities to encourage lateral shifts to similar courses at their campus. Only they are going to be benefited immensely if our university system collapses and in the process exposes our inability to handle the inherent difficulty and unmanageable contradictions associated with the semester system in our university environment. Our university education will be dumped to a corner that will be similar to the space occupied by the government schools in primary and secondary educations. We would just become irrelevant and they just want that. Their target seems to be to hurt the enviable crowd-pulling-ability of the maddening admission-seekers’-rush of our university.
I would like simple answers to the following open queries from those who have never bothered to answer any of these questions and even shied away from a much desirable debate in the Academic Council.
· In our university system, admissions are allowed till September. And this should not be stopped since colleges must be given chance to fill their vacant seats that are left by a majority of students availing the opportunity to move into either a better college or a better course. Admissions particularly in science courses get stabilized only in September as they get a chance to move to an engineering/medical college outside our university. Can anybody let me know that in the semester system how the hell they are supposed to get prepared for the semester examinations just after getting admitted in September? In our system at least first year of science courses should be annual even if somebody is hell-bent on imposing the semester system. For this reason the semester system can be successfully and somewhat meaningfully forced only in the second and third year.
· Can they provide a list of those benefits that can be achieved only in semester system but neither in an annual system and also nor in a system of continuous evaluation of students based on weekly tests? The fact remains that a system is never good or bad in absolute sense but one will have to assess that how frequently can examinations be held in a university having same course running in fifty plus colleges with number of students counting over several tens of thousands.
· In our university system where preparations, conduct and evaluation occupy whole year of the examination department for annual exam what steps they have taken to wrap the whole process in three to four months?We all know that due to some unavoidable local problems (such as a teacher going on a long leave or appointment of a fresh teacher taking inordinately long time while trying to follow the complex process being adopted by the university) appointment of a fresh teacher invariably gets delayed by a few months. In an annual system a fresh teacher always gets a chance to complete the syllabus by engaging some extra classes but how will this be possible in a semester system?
