Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

The flip side of OU semester system

By R. Ravikanth Reddy

HYDERABAD March 31. Osmania University's decision to extend the semester system to district PG centres and affiliated colleges offering PG courses is being welcomed as yet another step for improving academic standards but the fact is that the university implements a diluted system rather than the one followed universally and the one approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The internal assessment, which is an integral part of the semester system, is not followed by the university and the student's calibre is tested by the semester-end examinations alone. Another glaring aspect of the dilution is that there is no uniformity in the system and the examination pattern differs from department to department.

According to senior teachers, 30 per cent of marks should be reserved for internal assessment like class tests and the assignments given to students periodically. However, no such method is followed here. "Since the UGC had made semester system compulsory some cosmetic changes were brought but not the semester system itself,'' says a teacher from Arts College.

Internal assessment is now done through grading system and the students' performance doesn't reflect in the final marks sheet. So they don't bother much about it. Yet another concession given to students is that there is no cap on the backlogs while being promoted to the next semester. While in other Universities, students would not be promoted to the next semester if they don't clear the required number of subjects, Osmania allows the students to take all the subjects into the next semester as backlogs.

``Unless there is a fear of retention students will treat it as a year-wise-examination system and it will hardly have the required effect on them,'' says another teacher. The university gave a few other concessions to students when they opposed the system. One of them was to have objective type questions so that Telugu medium students could find it easy to attempt the paper since writing the examinations in English was made mandatory.

However, this is not uniformly followed by all departments. Many departments have objective questions while a few have decided not to go with it. Moreover, it differs from college to college. "When all the students study the same syllabus how can we test them with different examinations,'' asks another teacher.

Some teachers, however, feel that with all its limitations the semester system had helped in increasing students' attendance as 75 per cent was must to be eligible for the examinations.

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