The last few weeks have been taxing for T. Anikumar and his daughter, who aspired to pursue a Masters in Economics after completing B.A. in Economics from the University of Kerala.
The ‘unprecedented’ delay in the publication of results of many examinations that were conducted by the university threatened to mar her career prospects, along with many other final-year students who aimed for higher education.
“My daughter had set her sights on securing admission at the Madras Christian College. However, we weren’t able to submit the mark lists of all semesters within the deadline of June 20 as the university had yet to publish the results of the final two semesters. Moreover, we could only manage to obtain a draft mark list of the fourth semester from the university’s web portal. Despite our pleas, the college authorities initially refused to process our application, particularly due to the fact that most other universities across the country had published their results and also issued the mark lists by then,” says Mr. Anikumar, a Circle Inspector in the Excise Department.
Fortunately, they were provided further time to produce the mark lists until the commencement of classes, failing which they would have to forego the allotted seat.
Luckily, all of her pending results were declared a day before the classes commenced on July 5 and they were able to submit the documents on the first day of the academic year.
Lost chances
Not many students have been as fortunate as them. There are some who were left ruing the lost opportunity in getting admitted to reputed institutions in time for no fault of theirs.
“I’ve decided to enrol for short-term courses for the time being, before applying for a postgraduate course at one of the colleges of my choice the next year,” says an undergraduate, who requested anonymity.
Syndicate member M. Sreekumar, who is also the chairman of the committee on examinations, attributes the delay to the shortage of adequate staff.
Staff shortage
“Currently, there are only four employees who are entrusted with the task of providing false numbers for the answer sheets of close of seven lakh candidates, pursuing various courses, prior to forwarding them to the centralised valuation camps. Of these, there were nearly 1.25 lakh degree papers alone. Previously, the responsibility had been borne by around 20 data entry operators who used to be employed on contract basis for daily wages.”
Furthermore, official sources claim that a certain degree of disinterest among teachers who were deployed for valuation had affected the process.
With the University Grants Commission (UGC) deeming the valuation of answer sheets as part of the duties of college teachers, the system of remunerating them for the process had to be discontinued. The lack of incentives for evaluating answer scripts other than those of regular students is believed to have had an impact on the system.
