Over 7 lakh students, 15,000 papers: Delhi University’s biggest exam exercise to date

The number of students examined in one session also climbed from 69,808 to 86,000 within a year. (Express photo/ representational)

The University of Delhi’s Examination Branch has undertaken its largest-ever examination exercise since the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP). The branch, in a statement, announced that it conducted semester exams for over seven lakh students across nearly 90 colleges, including the School of Open Learning.

The scale of the operation necessitated the preparation of approximately 15,000 question papers and the involvement of more than 10,000 teachers, with multiple Central Evaluation Centres established to ensure timely and transparent assessment.

University officials noted that examination operations have expanded steadily over the years. Data from the academic sessions between 2021–22 and 2025–26 shows a consistent rise in both student numbers and the volume of question papers.

The November–December 2025 session marked a record high, with the Examination Branch handling 941 question papers in a single session—up sharply from 228 during the corresponding period in 2024.

The number of students examined in one session also rose from 69,808 to 86,000 within a year, making it the heaviest workload ever managed by the branch, the statement said.

Moreover, comparisons between the May–June 2025 and November–December 2025 sessions underscored the growing pressure on the system, with several days seeing more than 800 papers and a single-day peak of 941. Officials said managing such volumes required intensive coordination across scheduling, distribution, evaluation, and result processing.

In December, as many as 2.28 lakh DU students appeared for the papers on a single day with undergraduate courses dominating the schedule, as per news agency PTI.

An internal status report from DU’s examination branch noted that 904 different question papers were administered over the course of the day, with most students from the School of Open Learning (SOL), the university’s distance learning wing. Of the total candidates, 65,413 were SOL undergraduate students, and 2,002 were from postgraduate programmes.

Meanwhile, 1,61,366 students appeared from regular undergraduate courses. No regular postgraduate exams were held on the day, making the SOL share nearly 30 per cent of the total.