The CBCS results for the Ist semester have generated discontent amongst students and teachers. A large number of students, representing their colleges and courses, collected at Arts Faculty today, 3 February, at 12 noon to protest and represent the matter to the University. They were joined in by the DUTA President and other teacher representatives. Students and teachers are completely clueless about the new system. Students cannot see correspondence between their performance and grades and are feeling helpless. They do not know whether revaluation (for a steep fees of Rs 1000 per paper) will help them or not!
System never discussed in the AC and the EC nor notified:
It is only through a press statement made by Prof Rup Lal, Dean Examinations, that it became clear that the University has adopted relative grading system as suggested recently by the UGC. DUTA takes serious note of the fact that the relative grading system was adopted by the Exam Branch without any discussion in the Academic Council and the Executive Council. The method of grading was never notified to colleges and departments.
Marksheet of students:
The students have been awarded only a letter grade in each course without any mention of marks they have obtained. This is in contradiction with the DU guidelines dated 14 August 2015. No breakup has been provided of the overall course grade i.e. grades (or marks) obtained in the external examination (theory), practical examination, and internal assessment. The method of converting marks to grades have not been explained anywhere in the transcript. The only explanation provided in the transcript is a grade description statement that O is outstanding, A+ is excellent, A is very good and so on but without specifying whether this is evaluation in an absolute scale (as the marks system is) or these are grades based on relative performance (as the UGC template inherently imply).
Absolute Grading System Vs Relative Grading System:
While the absolute evaluation measures the level of performance of a student irrespective of how the others in the same batch have done; so if a large number does well or poorly they are graded accordingly. Whereas relative evaluation ranks or differentiates between students in comparison to each other and the objective there is to see how well a student has competed against the others. It often is a suitable method in competitive examinations where one needs to eliminate most of the examinees. In the relative grading system recommended by the UGC, the students who are well above 40% may be get an F in a paper! Test runs on last year marks show that students may require above 100% to get an O!
In a public examination system, where one is encouraging students to do well and which in ultimate analysis is indicating the student’s grasp of a course, absolute evaluation is the only correct principle. A public degree examination and evaluation system cannot and should not run based on a competitive principle. The UGC in suggesting and University of Delhi by implementing this scheme have shown disregard for the diversity and heterogeneity in class-rooms. The relative grading cannot work for a University where teaching happens in over 70 colleges. The system is bound to increase the stress level of students, result in many more failures and demoralization.
The relative grading system advocated by the UGC and adopted by the university administration without deliberation and due decision by the authoritative bodies such as the Academic Council and the Executive Council is clearly faulty and irrational in so far as the highest stipulated grade may require more than 100% of the maximum marks. It is completely irresponsible and callous on the part of the University administration and the UGC to force such major changes without due preparation and application of mind. The undue haste in which the Choice Based Credit System has been forced on students with UGC producing courses and evaluation system without possessing necessary expertise cannot be allowed to destroy the morale of young students. The least the University and the UGC should do is to review the system on urgent basis to bring relief to this batch of students or revert back to the mark system since all evaluation done by teachers were in terms of marks.
The DUTA demands that the marks obtained by all students should be made available for public scrutiny so that the problem with the adopted method of conversion to grades can be examined by all. It is shocking that the publication of marks which used to be public till 2011 has restricted to individual access. This has disallowed colleges and departments to conduct academic assessment of how students are performing.
(For details of the relative grading system suggested by the UGC see:
http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4426331_Instructional-Template.pdf)
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