Students of Jesus & Mary College (JMC), which is part of the South Campus of Delhi University (DU), staged a protest today, November 30. They allege discrepancies in their semester examination marks and the college administration’s inaction on their appeals.
The students allege that they were wrongly awarded an “ER” or “Essential Repeat”, which is a backlog grade in their external exams in their first, third, and fifth semesters last year and that the administration failed to rectify this error.
“In last year’s odd semester final exams, we were given ER in all our subjects. When we approached the college administration, we were told that this was due to a glitch and that they would rectify it soon. However, we waited for a year, and nothing of that sort happened,” says Stuti Mishra, a second-year student of the college who was also part of the protest.
In addition to this, the students also claim that the college administration has asked them to appear for re-examinations for the odd semester yesterday, November 29, triggering the protest.
The re-examinations would be conducted with the semester exams, which would begin on December 8.
“For one year, we appealed to the administration and the principal repeatedly, requesting them to rectify our marks. We were told that they were working on it and asked to go through a tedious application process for it to happen. Despite all that, we are now being asked to appear for re-exams,” Stuti laments.
All the students of JMC, who have agitated in front of the Administration building of the college, have just one question — “Why should we pay the price of scoring ER when it is not our fault?”
“We were made to run from pillar to post to rectify the grades on our marksheet. When we approached Delhi University, we were told that the college administration had not sent the marks for our internal exams, which is why we received ER,” alleges Rani Rajput, another second-year student from the college who is a part of the protest.
Due to this, she says, students would not be able to clear their backlogs despite appearing for re-exam.
“If we appear for re-exams, it would also say that we appeared for the re-exam on our marksheet, indicating that we failed to clear the exam on our first attempt. But, the ERs in our marksheets are due to a fault of the college administration, and it is unfair for us to have that tag of repeaters,” she adds.
Students allege that they are being made to appear for re-exams as the college wants to extract money from them in the form of examination fees.
“Each student has backlogs in one, two, and even all seven subjects, and has to pay Rs 400 per paper to appear for re-examination. To us, it seems like the college administration is trying to exploit this situation for financial gain,” Stuti claims.
Lack of response from the administration
Students allege that they are forced to protest only because the administration would not listen to their issues with their marksheets.
“After we applied for corrections, we were constantly told by the administration, as well as our teachers to wait for Delhi University’s response — until we were asked to appear for re-exams, despite assurances from the admin that our marksheets would be rectified,” says Swati Sharma, another student from the protest.
Further, students claimed that heavy state police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were deployed at the protest site, during the protest.
“Police arrived with vans, ready to detain us if the protest turned even slightly aggressive. They were even trying to talk us into clearing the protest site, but we were adamant,” says Stuti.
She alleges that despite the agitation, the principal of the college, Prof Sandra Joseph, would not even come to address the students.
“We were sitting in protest from 10 in the morning till 4 in the evening. Nobody from the administration, let alone the principal, had spoken to us,” she adds.
Despite few teachers being present, students say that they were only trying to convince them to call off the protest and present the matter to the principal on Monday (December 2).
“Our Teachers-in-Charge were not present either, and our Class Representatives were warned against helping us,” Swati alleges.
The protest finally dispersed at 4 pm, when the students, teachers present, and the Delhi Police decided to discuss the matter with the principal in an official meeting on Monday, December 2.
EdexLive reached out to the Principal’s Office, Jesus & Mary College as well as the Delhi University for a comment. The copy will be updated as and when we receive their response.
