Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) Voicing dissatisfaction at the semester system for all courses in Delhi University (DU) proposed from the next academic session, a teacher’s body of the varsity Tuesday said the system spells academic worries for them and tough times for students.

“Semester system in other countries does not mean having exams twice a year. Its logic is entirely different from that of DU at the moment, which is simply to divide the annual studies and examination into two,” said Vineeta Chandra, a DU teacher.

“Instead of choosing a course and a college as students coming to DU do now, it would require students taking admission only to a college, and determine their major (subject) and minor (subject) over a period of time.

“In order to allow the students to experiment with different courses before determining their major and minor, DU would have to offer a four year course as is the case in other countries where this system exists,” she added.

The teacher addressed a press conference Tuesday under the aegis of the Joint Action Body of the varsity’s teachers.

Chandra said that to implement the semester system like in other universities, a large number of courses have to be created in order to have a meaningful impact.

“And the big problem is that we teachers still don’t know what is being planned. There is no structure. So there are academic worries.

“There is a wrong image that we (teachers) don’t want semesters because we are scared of being overburdened with work, but the reality is that even if it is implemented, the amount of work will remain more or less the same,” she said.

Even students will have to face tough times, she said.

“Now that the exams are going on until June 9, a lot of students are hassled since their exam dates are clashing with entrance exam and competitive exam dates. Also, the admission process in the new academic year will see students scrambling,” Chandra said.

Generally, DU exams are over by May and the teachers, after correcting the papers, skim through the application forms to determine the cut offs for the next academic session.

“But this year, with no application forms, we have to do a guess work and determine the first cut-off list. Expectedly, the first cut offs are going to be high. So students will be scrambling from one college to the other and then have to wait for the next list,” she said.

As of now, there are 13 courses, including physics, chemistry, botany and zoology, which follow the semester system.