 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we are joined by Professor Abha Dev Habib from Delhi University who is here to discuss with us the situation of education, the situation of higher education during this COVID crisis as these COVID crisis continues. There are lockdowns which have been implemented all over the world and in most countries education is as a result shifting online and in her university as well that is Delhi University in India. A similar trend is being followed and now the university is set to begin online exams, open book exams from July 1st and this is happening despite massive opposition amongst the student and teachers community. So Professor Abha teaches physics and she's also the treasurer of the Delhi University Teachers Association and she will be talking to us about this opposition and about the issues that are in this policy of online education. So thank you for joining us today and can you first tell us about what exactly this system is of this open book online exam, how is this being planned and how will this be conducted? Yeah so to understand this first I'll like to share that how the structure of Delhi University for example in Delhi University courses are offered in two or three different modes one is regular mode students have to take classes in colleges or in departments and then you have school of open learning so a distance education mode and then similarly on parallel to distance education mode is for the women board for women education but based on that distance learning mode and and undergraduate level teaching happens in roughly 55 or 56 colleges for humanities social science and sciences while for internal assessments teachers work take tests quizzes and give assignments and assign internal marks internal assessment marks to students but all students have to then take a central semester and examination and a combination of this 25 percent is internal assessment and 75 is your semester and exam that total becomes your grades these are used towards grades for the students. Now this announcement of OBE happened only in around 13th May and for the first time we came to know that the university is thinking of having conducting an open book examination before that UGC was studying the possibilities for universities across and university had come with a very flexible formula and we were looking forward to a similar kind of formula I want to tell you Delhi University is a central university there are other 42 central universities also Delhi University is a central university and this means that the student population is very very heterogeneous we get students from across the country and in this there is a very high percentage of there are 50 seats are reserved for SC, ST, OBC and then we also have reservation for EWS students so this is the composition student composition for our of our university now if the university suddenly brings the formula of open book examination our students are not used to it also the teachers were never instructed to teach in a particular manner so that is a problem for us and the open book examination the university is saying that for each student there will be a folder created on the website in which the question paper will be posted for the day and the student will have to download work on the paper and upload it within three hours as per the university understanding the question paper is something which the student should complete in two hours an additional hour is being given only to take care of connectivity issues for downloading and uploading so this is a basic format and colleges have been instructed to help a student if they are not able to upload so maybe then a question or if they are not able to download for some reason because suddenly when a large number of students will be taking exam the university is not also sure whether the website will work or not so colleges have been then given the charge of following up the things case to case first I mean for a given personalized attention to students to email them the question paper to also take their answer script so this is a broadly what OBE is for Delhi University so here of course you're mentioning issues of connectivity and now I mean what are the other issues that could come up in this system because like you were saying a lot of the students are from outside Delhi so they would have left for their homes and I think they have been issues discussed about how they might not have access to materials and internet so a lot of issues have been talked about in this in in relation to this to these exams can you tell us more about this and why it's being opposed see one thing is that why do you want to examine student the fundamental question is that you want to examine whether they have understood what you were trying to aim at whether you had those learning outcomes whether the student have critically understood analyzed the reading material learnt new things new techniques or whatever now when the teaching has been very uneven you see that you we were trying to connect for this interview for last 20 minutes and we did not have connection now when I say that students from across the country come then there are many students coming from suburban and rural backgrounds they come from suburban and rural backgrounds and if in Delhi the connectivity issues are like this you can only imagine what is happening in Rajasthan in some of UP or somewhere else also students 50 percent students I mean you know we conducted from Delhi University teachers association we conducted a survey among students and 51,500 students responded to our survey and in this 50 percent students said that they are from outside Delhi now we need to understand that in Delhi University we were having a mid-semester break which also included a festival holy was there is one of the major festivals of the country and students had gone back only for three days or four days thinking that they will be back so they did not even carry the study material from before the mid-semester break I mean for the classes which were done in January February March they do not even have reading material for that so when we were instructed and the lockdown started around 19th March just as us University was reopening the lockdown started I want to say here that no institutional help was provided to students or to teachers we are you know you can understand that there is no scholarship for teachers to buy laptops to have basic infrastructure ready for all times to be using it all the times so it depends on whether I as a teacher has you know created that facility for myself at home or not so and the institutions just as an order the vice chancellor or the mhd says that teachers will have to engage students now teachers did whatever they were able to do similarly our students are not equipped with laptops or netbooks or anything there are no scholarships to ensure that there is minimum infrastructure available at the students end say some connectivity broadband or to say the net book so when we started teaching the students say that they have not carried material and they are not even able to you know connect so quickly because things have happened so drastically for them the things have changed that they were taking little time to settle down with the new things completely uncertain world and we can only imagine that if teachers are or you know we are feeling jittery how our students were taking looking at the whole thing so one they do not have material the other is that they are looking at they have a very unequal playing field we have students from marginalized section we have a large number of students coming from a differently abled section so with these things and no institutional help to ensure a minimum level playing field we can only imagine how uneven our teaching has been so foreign and uneven teaching even when I was taking classes I was uploading material I was also trying to hold classes on zoom I saw that only one fourth student was able to come on zoom and they said that connectivity is one issue conditions at home is another condition um situation that they do not get an environment where they can concentrate on their studies the environments are very different for all our students so a large number also said that environment at home is not conducive for us to join our zoom sessions regularly only one fourth students were coming so when I when I'm making efforts even then I can't reach my students equally and if we looked at the Delhi university structure which I told that physics honors for example is being taught in roughly 25 colleges now if our teaching has been so unequal can we test students through a centralized examination which is going to be common for all the students and teachers did not protest so much towards internal assessment because when I took internal assessment though I found it very difficult to track each and every student to extend my deadlines but I was still able to reach to my students there are students I will say that I was able to reach but many teachers have reported that even for internal assessment they're finding it difficult to reach to the student because the student does not have any internet connection so I'm saying that even for internal assessment suppose I made efforts I tested them on what I was able to teach them how evenly I was able to approach them I tested them on that now for a centralized examination this situation does not is not there for the student the student could negotiate much more with me than with the centralized examination therefore we think that any examination right now will be unjust because the teaching has been uneven because the institution you know I am from Miranda house and in Miranda house I will appreciate that academic committee meetings were held regularly departmental meetings were held regularly so we were able to do a coordinated effort all teachers tried to do similar things and we also we are teachers in regular stream and we did not have this idea of online teaching various applications all this we had to learn on our own and it did help us to have you know meetings but there were no orders from the university no systematic approach to see that uniformly this was done across colleges or across departments so there are departments and colleges where there has been no coordinated effort now you want to suddenly test the student I think it is very unfair any kind of examination will be unfair because of the unequal level playing field unequal playing field for the student right now an examination will be map of how well they were how well equipped they were in terms of infrastructure internet connection environment at home if a student had best of all of this they may perform little better and others will be damaged so we think that any form of examination will be back the other thing is because we are a central university and most of our students in my class in fact in some departments in some colleges the number of our station student is as large as like 95 percent students from outside now they're coming back to Delhi will mean quarantine it will also mean that most of the students do not stay on campus I mean that we only have limited number of hospital seats they stay on rented accommodation whether now they will get rented accommodation or not is also a thing so I don't think so pen and paper is possible a routine exam is possible in the near future and online examination will be completely discriminatory and when the letter of the dean examination came on 14th May the first announcement of OBE for the students and teachers I will like to say here that we were very hurt in the sense that it also filled us with some anger that it did not respond to needs of and entitlements of different sections it did not say that what will happen if in three hours a student is not able to upload it did not say what will happen to blind students who need a scribe and who will not get scribe right now because of the norms of physical distancing so I think OBE has to be rethought the other thing is that OBE in the OBE there is no way of maintaining it is not a fear that the private players and group of students can completely rig this examination so in some sense it is not really an examination which will be a credible system so was there any sort of consultation process that was done before the system was announced because of course you mentioned the survey that Duta conducted DUTA conducted but on from the on the behalf of the university was there any sort of similar process that was carried out before rolling out the system? This is extremely important question Surya and I want to say that whereas Hyderabad University conducted a survey of and they only have a small number of students as opposed to us for us the terminal semester students if we include UG and PG and open learning and regular it will go up to four lakhs so we are talking about lot of students in Delhi University before taking this call the university or the colleges did not conduct any survey now in that itself is very irresponsible it was duty of the university to in between conduct service every one month or something to see whether institution has been able to penetrate has been able to reach to the students or not and how equipped the students are and no survey was conducted by Delhi University I also want to say that there was a 15 member committee which was announced around 6th May and it did not have representatives of teachers there are elected members of the teachers in the academic council and the executive council which are an apex body for decision making so no consultation with the decision making bodies no representative teachers representative on this 15 membered committee there was no member from the differently abled section of students and teachers DUTA which is the teachers association no member was invited to this committee DUSU which is the union of the students and it is such a large body and we were not invited so there were no consultative processes and if you are today there is a news in outlook and in times of India about AMU professor a legal Muslim university professor who is being targeted by the vice chancellor because he is opposing open book examination in that central university and we fear that this pressure is coming from the MHRD to force Delhi University and some central university into open book examination to use terminal students as a as lab rats and we have been opposing this and I want to say that there are alternatives there are credible alternatives which not only many universities in India but abroad also who have adopted and which our own features have suggested and of course you talked about the environments at home which many students might have and how those might not be suitable for studying but apart from that we also have to consider the massive economic crisis that we are facing and how many students particularly from more marginalized communities you know how difficult they would find to focus on examinations during this time in this economic slowdown and many small businesses closing all around the country I think the university is being very very insensitive and pushing for an examination because right now mental well-being and physical well-being of students and citizens is paramount and you are crushing students also because you did not provide see if the university would have acted as a provider and would have provided and you know ensured that all students were equally reached I could still understand but today when this households are under crisis you want students to you know prepare for a download and upload and the scanner or to go for a good screen mobile a mobile which can screen but scan things better I think this is very very unfortunate and I want to tell you that after the lockdown the kind of situation we have today by July there may be many more deaths because of COVID and can we really think that the families will be in shape to deal with examination this is a very big question can a university universities are you know I have to be role models to create new to respond to new situation in a very innovative manner to you know create models for the society and what we see is that the university is acting in a very incentive insensitive manner and I want to tell you that in open learning a large number of students come from marginalized backgrounds in our own university of 50% students would be any way women more in fact in many more disciplines the number of women is much more you understand how it is in the country and many more men go for management courses and this and that but for humanities social science pure sciences a large number of students are women so when I took a survey in Miranda house and I asked my students why they were not able to join zoom many of women students said that environmentalism is not conducive in fact you know today I teach in a women's college and I think unless the government promises many more scholarships to women to students coming from marginalized section and doing all I mean generally a large number of scholarships have to be promised if you want students to come back to education because with this kind of slowdown economic slowdown the lockdowns which have crushed economics I mean anyway we were going to I um is economic slowdown but lockdown has just broken the back of many households this is in in fact very very unfortunate and that is also the reason but I also do not want students to come back to Delhi spend 50 50 000 or 70 000 to stay here and then give an exam that kind of money may not be available with parents certainly not for many daughters so finally you had mentioned that there are alternatives to this can you tell us what these alternatives are and also what are duta's future plans for resisting this system of online exams see I will like to say that duta has started the movement along with the students and we will take all we have taken to social media we and twitter storm and we have been writing representing um to various authorities and uh so we will carry forward this work but I want to say what are the alternatives and for example IIT Kanpur it has said that for the terminal for the graduating students students who are graduating this semester they will assign grades ABC depending on the work they have done uh in the semester and which the individual teachers have marked them already APC and satisfactory grade they are saying they will not fail anybody for this semester okay they are not going to retain any student because they are paying attention that our student need to graduate on time and the hardship the student is facing they are ready to compromise and they are saying that this is the new solution and for all the students which are not graduating this year this grades will be assigned to them also but the student will be able to improve on the those grades little later Hyderabad University also is looking at the past uh um uh past uh your performances of the student and uh in Delhi University also I would like to say um uh the for the second year and for the first year the university itself has said that we will look at the internal assessment which has been done now and look at the past performance of the student and uh with this uh two components we will assign a grade to the student uh we only want to understand this that why this cannot be applied to the terminal student terminal semester student in fact you know the terminal semester student has many more past uh performances on the basis of which an average can be taken for example for a second semester student there is only one past performance and the university is ready to give that past performance of weightage whereas for the terminal semester student and undergraduate there are five performances which the student has already acquired the the university has given it why can't that average be taken so it is beyond us and teachers are suggesting this only that you take internal assessment and combine it with the past performance but uh give an opportunity to the student to improve it through pen and paper examination conventional examination whenever it becomes possible for the university uh to hold maybe next year maybe with the next cycle of the semesters uh then an opportunity can be given if the student is not happy suppose a student does not want the fifth semester to be used or the first semester when the students just come from outside and they're struggling with their lives in a metropolitan city if they do not like that performance to be counted and they're not happy with the grade the university has given to all students on the basis of the past performance and the internal assessment let that student take the exam little later in a conventional manner so this is what we are suggesting and if the university feels that it is a credible thing for the first year and uh for the second semester and for the fourth semester student then I think it is a credible solution even for the terminal semester student so thank you for joining us today that's all the time we have keep watching people's dispatch oh