Mumbai: With barely five days left, the University of Mumbai is hopeful that 99% of the results of undergraduate and postgraduate exams will be declared by July 31.
“The examination section is trying its best to meet the deadline set by the Chancellor to avoid inconvenience to students. There are complaints of failed log-ins and other technical glitches, but those are being resolved,” M.A. Khan, Registrar, told The Hindu .
At the end of the third non-instructional day in colleges on Wednesday, 1.18 lakh answer sheets were evaluated. But, 4.62 lakh answer sheets are still to be assessed. “There is no overburdening, as 5,500 teachers are involved in the process, taking the average of answer sheets per teacher to 20,” said Vinayak Dalvi, officer on special duty for online assessment.
Mr. Khan said a decision to extend the non-instructional days till July 31 will be taken on Thursday. He said the hike in remuneration from ₹8 to ₹16 for evaluation and from ₹12 to ₹20 for moderation should not be construed as an incentive. “We sincerely appreciate the efforts of teachers. A teacher doesn’t hanker after money or remuneration. In the interest of the students’ future, they simply perform their duty in spite of the hardship.”
Meanwhile, Bhalchandra Mungekar, former Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University, came down heavily on Vice Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh for what he called an unprecedented crisis that had resulted from Mr. Deshmukh’s hasty decision to go for online assessment.
“The Vice Chancellor should take the moral responsibility of the crisis, and step down immediately. He should have implemented the online assessment on an examination involving around 20,000 students on a pilot basis. But instead, the process started in April, when 30-40% examinations were over,” Mr. Mungekar, a former Rajya Sabha MP, said at a press conference.
He also alleged that the process of selecting MeritTrac, the third-party service provider for the assessment process, was not transparent. He said meeting the July 31 deadline is impossible. “Other than Mumbai and Pune universities, the medium of instruction at other universities in Maharashtra is Marathi. How can teachers of other universities help in the evaluation work? The Pune University’s syllabus is different from that of Mumbai University,” Mr. Mungekar said.
Mr. Dalvi said they have set up a statistical scientific academic method to check deviations between the papers assessed by Nagpur University teachers and moderated in Mumbai, and the ones assessed and moderated in Mumbai. “If we find deviations, we will scrap it and put it for fresh assessment. Besides, the moderation will be done only in Mumbai,” he said. On Tuesday, teachers from Nagpur University were roped in for evaluation.
Mr. Mungekar also said that since the quality of assessment seems questionable, the university should have an alternative plan ready for those who seek re-evaluation. “The government should appoint an administrator for the university and initiate a judicial inquiry into the crisis.”
