BEd Students Heart-Broken As DAVV Vice Chancellor Prof Rakesh Singhai Wins Challenge

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Though he dubbed it as “no one had the last laugh”, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya vice chancellor Prof Rakesh Singhai on Thursday won the challenge he had thrown up before BEd course students, who had leveled allegations of poor evaluation of answer books, some days ago.

The allegations turned out to be untrue as a sampling of answer books was done in presence of the VC, exam controller Ashesh Tiwari and a group of students on Thursday. For the first time, the university — on the instructions of the VC– arranged for such re-evaluation of answer sheets of eight students in his presence.

However, much to the disappointment of students, the re-evaluation brought no change to the results. The controversy stems from the fourth-semester results, which saw only 42 per cent of students passing the exams. Dissatisfied students had alleged that poor evaluation was to blame for the high failure rate.

In response, the VC challenged the students to prove their claims by offering to conduct a transparent sampling process. He had told students that the university would re-evaluate answer books of all students without taking any charges if significant change in original and sample result is found.

Over 20 students from Dhar accepted the challenge and answer sheets for three different subjects of eight students were brought in from the evaluation centre. The re-evaluation, which lasted for two hours, revealed no discrepancies.

The exam controller confirmed that the marks remained consistent with the original evaluation, dismissing the allegations of unfair assessment. The students, however, were heart broken by the outcome of the sampling. “We were expecting significant change in the results but the subject experts told us they haven’t found any discrepancies,” they said.

Recurring decline in results sparks debate

The BEd course has faced repeated criticism over its declining results in recent years, with failure rates ranging between 50 per cent and 70 per cent in previous semesters. This has fueled protests and allegations that the university is deliberately manipulating results.

However, this year’s transparent re-evaluation experiment aimed to address these accusations conclusively. Subject experts involved in the process suggested that one of the core issues might be students relying on guides instead of textbooks, potentially leading to poor preparation. The unchanged results suggest that the evaluation process may not be the root cause of the problem.