The Hindu : New Delhi News : Ghosts of internal assessment haunt students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Ghosts of internal assessment haunt students

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 29. Even as a section of Delhi University students settle down to a new examination date sheet `adjusted' to meet their needs, the ghosts of internal assessment seems to be yet again haunting nearly 400 students of Satyawati College.

While the college accuses the University of `moderating' the internal assessment figures of students, the latter maintains that it carried the same figures given by the college that "already'' had errors. "They had sent us a certain set of marks on the basis of which the results were declared. We did not make any changes. But they came back to us with a new set of marks claiming that there had been errors in the CD sent by them, that too much after the results were declared. So there was no question of the University changing any figures,'' said the Dean of College, Kiran Datar, who met a delegation of the college today.

The college, however, says the future of 395 students is in the dark as they have to either repeat a paper or in some cases a whole year because of the University's "mistrust'' in teachers.

According to the college, the internal assessment marks of students were "doctored'' by the University last year on the basis that the students were given more marks than they deserved. With the University marking giving students everything from a zilch to a low two or five marks of a total 25 marks, even the above average students ended up with very low scores and in some case failing, said teachers.

But the real culprit was perhaps the fact that the CD containing the internal assessment marks and sent to the University had errors. While the college admits that it had made the mistake of not tallying the final marks with their manual records, it adds that the University should stop changing the marks of students without a strong basis.

A six-member team of the college led by its Principal, K.P.Bhatt, met Dean of Colleges, Kiran Datar, on Monday but had to contend with the assurance of the issue being once again sent for discussion to the committee on internal assessment.

"If the University has set up a system assigning teachers to mark students on the basis of their performance, then why moderate the marks? It is totally distrusting the teacher. The University says it cannot change the marks because it will affect its credibility, but what about, it is not affecting our credibility of assessing the students. And how can you give a student who has also performed well in his theory paper a zero in his internal assessment?'' asked Chitra Mishra, the secretary of the Satyawati College Staff Association.

While admitting that the college too should have been careful, teachers say since it was the first year and none of the staff was trained to deal with that kind of work, the University should have stayed away from taking drastic steps such as slashing down the marks of students without thinking about their future.

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