Delhi University students fret over ill-prepared online mock tests, claims site crash

"Hasty decision or just poor preparedness", asks enraged Delhi University students as they face issues from logging in to OTP being sent to the wrong phone number to no option of questions for some subjects during online mock tests for open-book examinations (OBE) for the semester for final-year students of undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) from July 10 onwards.

DU also announced that the students can take the mock tests from July 4 to understand the method of answering the questions in the OBE. Saturday was the first day of mock tests which met with huge disappointment among students. Some took to social media to share a screenshot of the problems being faced by students, some also started ranting on social media on how the education system is collapsing during a pandemic.

Tanushree Singh, a microbiology student, said, "Mock papers are not getting downloaded from the site. Time slots were given for different subjects, but either the question paper is not uploaded or questions which are supposed to be answered by students of semester two are appearing as semester four questions. Students with subjects like economics, microbiology, maths faced the maximum problems."

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Some students, sharing screenshots of OBE portal, said that there is no mention of the date on the portal; while some also claimed that the OBE portal did not display their details, despite registering on the portal; some also claimed that the website itself crashed around 12 pm leading to more chaos.

Saloni Singh, pursing history honours, says, "This is a mock test, so the worry is a little less but if similar issues happen during final tests, then it will be a mockery on us students. Despite so much opposition, the tests were given a green signal to be conducted, now it's up to the authorities to ensure that students do not face similar problems".

'There may be some glitches'

However, Dean, Examinations, Vinay Gupta, brushed off the allegations pertaining to the registration issue to a website crash. He said, "More than 30,000 students have registered in the first slot. There may be some glitches but the point of holding these mocks was to smoothen them out. Also, I'm sitting here with the question papers open in front of me. There may be an issue in one or two cases of papers getting mixed up but otherwise, everything is in place," he said.

Gupta also denied that the website crashed. "When the exams are actually held, students will come to the portal in batches since exam timings are different. During mocks the load is much more and yet the website hasn't crashed which says something about our preparedness," he said.

(PTI Photo)

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