Pro choice

Despite the wars that raged between Delhi Universitys faculty and student unions and its determined administration,the university is all set to migrate to a semester system. Last year,13 science departments switched to semesters at the undergraduate level,while others were held up because of faculty resistance. The Supreme Court recently refused to entertain a petition for a stay order on the semester system. And now,the university is readying for a full-scale move,as syllabi have been readied and vetted by the academic council for some 50 subjects.

The semester system was strongly championed by the Knowledge Commission,as a way to bring in greater flexibility and inter-disciplinarity into DU,apart from the obvious benefit of breaking up the years work into smaller,more manageable units for students. Course material will be chosen by individual instructors,who also evaluate student work as opposed to an impersonal process with an annual centralised examination and a vast,fixed syllabus. These units can be creatively combined,and may allow students to move across academic fields. Whats more,they can also transfer credits and move across institutions. They will also be able to choose a major later,after sampling and studying different courses a major improvement on the narrow focus that DU previously demanded of undergraduates.

Teachers unions,voicing reservations,have suggested that DU is an umbrella with varying standards of competence,and asked whether greater freedom to its colleges will formalise these differential standards. They have also pointed to the increased volumes of evaluation and administration required. Many of these questions deserve a full hearing. However,they are largely technical impediments,and should not detract from the larger project of university reform one in which faculty,administration and students have much meeting ground. Maximising choice for students and greater decentralisation and autonomy for colleges are obvious positives. The context and operating conditions at DU are not the same as the American semester model,and the university will have to adapt the system to its own needs. Now that the system has been installed,the faculty and administration should direct their energies into making it work.