One of India’s leading universities – The Delhi University (DU) has decided to do away with the “special chance” provision that allowed students who left their studies midway to appear for pending exams even years later.
Under the “special chance” provision, students who could not complete their degrees within stipulated time were allowed to appear for pending exams even years later if they could justify their absence.
The decision to do away with this provision was taken last week when DU’s Executive Council (EC), which is the supreme decision-making body of the university, decided to scrap the provision and said that the students must complete their degrees on time.
Taking strict initiative, an EC member said,
“Students are here to study. Why can’t they complete their degrees on time?”
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Though he was quick to point out that in the case of any “reasonable” issue, like health reasons or marriage-students are already allowed a ‘span time’ to complete their degree and thus “there is no need for any chance beyond that.”
Under the ‘span time’ provision, students were allowed some extra time to complete their degrees, but under DU norms an undergraduate student must finish their degrees within six years (from the date of enrollment).
Meanwhile, a post-graduate degree student is given four years from the date of enrolment to finish his/her degree.
EC said that the biggest reason behind this was because the examination branch was finding it difficult to maintain the records for a longer period and as it “is not only unprofessional but also puts undue pressure on the examination office.”
The said provision has been a topic of debate in DU for over a decade and was initially done away with in the year 2012.
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Though, they were later forced to bring it back following protests from students in which they had approached the Delhi High Court.
