Mumbai: In a major embarrassment for the Mumbai University, students showed black flags and protested with placards and black ribbons at the convocation ceremony on Thursday morning.
The security staff seized their placards and even threatened them with arrests when the students protested at the Fort campus. About 18 students of the first batch of the Masters in Social Work from Kalina campus’ Rajiv Gandhi Center for Contemporary Studies (RGCCS) protested over not receiving last year’s mark sheet, lack of teachers, and absence of course co-ordinator.
“The course was started for the first time last year. Even though we are on the verge of Semester IV, we are yet to receive our mark sheets for Semester I following issues about whether University or our autonomous institute should print our mark sheet. No lectures are taking place now on our subjects — NGO management and Disaster Management — since our subject expert’s term has not been extended. After our complaint, the institute got PhD students to teach us. We also don’t have a course co-ordinator now,” said Dhirendra Rathaur, one of the students.
Semester IV has only two subjects, one project and one field work and hence teaching is crucial. He said that the though the students marks were provided, absence of mark sheets meant that students could not apply for scholarships or take up job offers. The institute has 45 students in the first year and 30 students in the second year.
When contacted, Registrar of Mumbai University Dr. Dinesh Kamble said: “We have provided three ad hoc teachers. Since this is a new course, it is just an initial issue and could have been easily sorted if they had approached us earlier.”
