Hanumant's Law Journal
Equality before Law and Equal Protection of Law
| Second Appeal to MP SIC against DAVV, Indore |
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| Written by Hanumant's Law Journal | ||||
| Saturday, 04 September 2010 12:21 | ||||
UPDATE: Due to other commitments, I could not personally attend the hearing. But our esteemed colleague Adv. Sunil Ramchandani represented us well and we won the case.When I got the results for my LLB exams, I was disappointed. I scored 60%, which was highest in the University but in absolute terms it wa still only 60%! It conveys that I didn't know 40% of the stuff. I had studied well and I had answered all the questions with cases and everything. Yet, I got only 60%. I wanted to know what I wrote wrong or what I missed in my answers so that I can improve. If you are deducting 40% then you ought to tell me why. Unfortunately, as highlighted in my other article, DAVV, just like many other Indian University is not at all learning friendly. Their examination process, evaluation, etc. is all a sham. Nobody knows how and on what basis do they evaluate the answers. There are no guidlines for the evaluaters on marking. There is no criteria for how many marks should be awarded and what points need to be covered in an answer. So my only recourse was to get a copy of my answersheet and show to my professors in college. My objective was to find out the mistakes so that I can write better in the next exams. DAVV charges Rs. 500 per answersheet to view it and it seemed like a good idea. However, the problem is that DAVV only allows you to only view the answersheet... literally. You are put in a hall and are given the answersheet but you can only view it. You can't take notes, you can't take a copy. You can't talk to anyone. You can just look at it and go away. That's it. To me, this is a complete waste and it totally negates the purpose of viewing the answersheet. What am I going to do with this? I already know what I wrote. The whole point was to show to the professors to improve on it. So I filed a Right to Information Application to get a copy of my answersheet. It was promtly denied. I filed first appeal to the VC, for which no response came. Finally, I filed Second Appeal to MP State Information Commission sometime around in Mar. 2009. I just got a letter from them that a hearing has been scheduled on 20th Sept. 2010. I have already passed LLB and am a Lawyer now. My answersheets are probably disposed off long ago. So I am not going to benefit much from it. But I believe this is a very important case and has the potential to revolutionise the University education. When students get their answersheet and compare what they have written and how they have been awarded mark, they will be enraged at the mistakes, irrational evaluation, and the over all callous evaluation process. Only when there are hundreds of students enraged and breathing down the throat of Univ. authorities, a change can happen. I believe this will bring a lot of accountability to University examinations thereby increasing the standard of education. So I am keeping my fingers crossed. Here is the softcopy of the 2nd appeal that was filed. -Adv Hanumant Deshmukh
Comments (6)
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 23 September 2010 11:47 |
Editors
Hanumant Deshmukh
B.Tech.(IT-BHU, Varanasi),
CFA, LLB (Hons)
Sunil Ramchandani
B.Com. LLB(Hons)
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Congratulations for your victory in the battle against DAVV.
I have been following your posts in the lawyersclub website as well as the content of your own website since many months. You have the germ of reforming the law education in our country in you. Unfortunately, this is going to be a very uphill battle.
The problem with everything related to education in India is that credibility is sacrificed at the altar of money. Esteemed universities of yore today are just money miners. These institutions exploit the sincere urge of the ever increasing tribe of students to get a decent formal education into a gold digging opportunity. Such is the condition that you cannot differentiate much between university supported colleges and fly by night operators that thrive under the guise of unaided institutions.
The quality of teaching, most particularly in law has taken such a nosedive, that any effort to bring in reforms is bound to be defeated. I cannot speak about the National Law School Universities as I have no personal experience about them; but it appears from the general impression that is created, that these are elitist institutions the products of which will not have the sort of empathy with the general population that is much needed for a system of jurisprudence that is not crony to superior vested interests of the State and its chamchas.
The reforms being envisaged in law education are generally moving towards a position of making the study of law a sole prerogative of a system represented by only National Law School Universities. The older post graduate 3 years LL.B education system is to my mind on the verge of being sooner or later, phased out. Also, the National Law School University system, in addition to being a post 12th standard five years course requires the student to be a hosteler; and the cost of education is naturally very steep. Also, such a strategy eliminates the need of an age bar in law education and no older person would have the energy to indulge in such a costly and time consuming exercise.
I am a Ph.D in Chemistry, and in my 40’s due to my interest in consumer activism got curious about pursuing the study of law, I tried to get myself admitted in the 3 years LL.B course of the University of Mumbai and succeeded in getting an admission in Swami Vivekanand College of Law, Chembur. The 1st semester began in mid-August 2010 because Mumbai University delayed declaring graduation results due to lax paper-checking and we are having exams in mid-November 2010. My enthusiasm began to evaporate within the first month itself when I noticed that the teachers could not communicate in English, which was the medium of instruction.
In your post you mention “in most Indian universities (education)…is not at all learning friendly. Their examination process, evaluation, etc. is all a sham. Nobody knows how and on what basis do they evaluate the answers. There are no guidelines for the evaluators on marking. There are no criteria for how many marks should be awarded and what points need to be covered in an answer...”- I experienced this first hand at the hands of those permanent as well as contracted teachers (most colleges of Mumbai University teaching law employ contracted teachers to cut costs and incidentally quality).
The teachers I noticed were hampered not just due to their singular inability to communicate in English, but also by their inadequate knowledge of the subjects they were attempting to teach. Their mistake of facts was simply speaking reprehensible! Just to cite an example among the several scores that I can give, one teacher while talking about the amount of compensation in the Workman’s Compensation Act 1923, where “death results an amount equal to fifty from the injury cent of the monthly wages of the deceased workman multiplied by the relevant factor; or an amount of fifty thousand rupees, whichever is more” conveniently omitted the ‘relevant factor’ part and talked just about the fifty thousand Rupees part; when reminded about this gaffe, the fellow made light of it by saying that since he corrects examination papers, he knows everything and it is not necessary to go into the matter into such details! He further stated that in an answer on labour law he reads only the first two and last two lines, what lies in between does not matter much to him, as long as the answer runs into 12 pages! The teacher’s advice to the students for the ensuing exams was to write answers in a manner that the font was large enough to give just about four words to a line! And write so much that at least 40 pages are filled! One of the teachers even suggested that we must not expect marks for how well we write, and more importantly we must not even bother to get the papers reassessed if we do not get the marks we desire, since it will serve no purpose! As however well one writes, it is the examiner’s policy not to give more than 48-52% of marks and ensure that ...