Teachers, students fume at exam paper mess

On the first day of Delhi University examination on Monday, students and teachers were shocked to get exam papers for the wrong subject section, that had been scheduled for another date.

All the BA Honours courses have compulsory English papers, except English Honours, namely ‘Contemporary’ and ‘Individual and Society’. Instead of sending papers for Contemporary English, question papers for the latter were sent by the examination branch of DU.

“When we tried to get in touch with the officials, not a single university official could be contacted. We started panicking. It was not a matter of just one college but 80 colleges or more,” said Rudrashish Chakraborty, professor of English, Kirori Mal College.

“From our college one non-teaching staff and a professor went to the examination branch; teachers from other colleges also reached there. But officials there refused to talk to them. The teachers had to make a forcible entry,” said Chakraborty.

According to teachers, exam officials couldn’t find the printed paper, so handwritten paper was faxed to colleges.

“A draft paper written by the paper setter was faxed and then colleges photocopied it. With such a leak, the confidentiality and secrecy of a paper of a university like DU went out of the window. This is shameful,” added Chakraborty. Students had to wait at least two hours before getting the right question paper. “I know there were couple of students who went back after waiting for more than two hours, thinking that the paper will be cancelled. Some parts in the photo stated copies were unreadable,” said Shilpi, first year political science student from Ramjas College.

The teachers complained that the correct paper was not sent to all the colleges at the same time.

“The paper is out, all the college photo copy shops have a copy, for students who have not yet got the paper have access to it now. Also the paper which was given initially, that is also out now. Who is accountable for all this mess?,”said another teacher from Hindu College, adding that around 20,000 students were affected.

Another error occurred in non-Sanskrit (hons) paper where two papers with the same names were sent with the questions from the syllabus which was not taught to the students.

“As per the preliminary investigation conducted by the University,it appears that the department of English committed a lapse by setting the wrong paper. For Sanskrit paper, the Department of Sanskrit has submitted a signed note acknowledging the error committed by them,” said a statement from the Registrar's office.