Non-Collegiate gets closer to regular college system

THE new academic session for students of Delhi University's Non-Collegiate Women's Education Board (NCWEB) has introduced several changes. Not only has the Board decided to make attendance compulsory for all the enrolled students, it has also decided to do away with the old system of examination. "Under the new guidelines all the students would be required to have a compulsory 66% attendance. Also examination for NCWEB students will be conducted with regular college students," informed Vinod Lyall, director, NCWEB. 

The changes have been introduced to bring students of NCWEB close to the system of regular colleges. "We have the same syllabi and the faculty teaching our students is the same. Our students get above 90% marks. It is just that the classes are held on Saturdays and Sundays. If our students can get 90% with just one session in a week, I think they will perform better under the new guidelines." 

Elaborating on the new examination system, Lyall said, "Earlier the examinations were held with the School of Open Learning (SOL). As a result the papers were also checked with SOL papers. From now on students of NCWEB will have their exams with that of regular college students and the papers will also be checked with regular college students." 

The Board's decision to follow a regular college timetable for the exam comes with a view to set in place the entire academic cycle. "Earlier the results used to get delayed. But once the papers are getting checked with regular college papers, the result would be out and we would be able to start our academic session on time. Though we used to start the session in August only but there were lesser students and faculty members. Also it will help save so much of time and infrastructure that was going waste due to students' absenteeism in classrooms," Lyall said. 

Moreover, the Board feels that aligning its examination with that of regular colleges will help improve the process of checking papers. "We had observed a drastic difference in the marks of the same batch. If in one year they got 80% marks, another year the same students got 1-2 % marks which is a matter of concern. Also SOL papers are in lakhs, once papers are checked with regular college papers, they will get the due attention," she said. 

Among the many new changes, the Board has reduced the number of days in an academic year from 55 to 50 days. "There will be no classes for five days during autumn break. Also looking at the lesser number of students in the centres operating on Saturday, we have shifted two of our centres - Kalindi College and Vivekananda College to Sunday centre," Lyall said. 

This year NCWEB received 28,000 applications for the 4,500 seats available at the undergraduate level.

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