Mumbai: Students and teachers continued to remain sceptical of pending University of Mumbai results being declared by July 31, despite directions to Vice-Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh from Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, who is also the university’s Chancellor.
According to section 89 of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, results should be declared within 30 days, and not beyond 45 days. Expressing concern, Mr. Rao had said of the 477 examinations conducted, results to only 51 had been declared. Of these, results to only 23 exams were out within 30 days, while 18 examination results took up to 45 days to be declared.
The Bombay University and College Teachers’ Union (BUCTU) has listed several issues in a memorandum submitted to the Governor on July 4, who is yet to respond to it. The memorandum underlines the delays, and says the Vice-Chancellor had announced that assessment of answer scripts will be via On-Screen Marking (OSM), and results would be out on April 20. Eight days later, it adds, the V-C said the service provider for this would be MeritTrac Services.
Madhu Paranjape, general secretary, BUCTU, said MU setting up a war room to meet the deadline may not be enough. “Infrastructure for the online assessment of 22 lakh answer scripts was still being put in place after the examinations,” she said.
The memorandum also claimed that MU’s excuse of teachers being unavailable due to the summer vacations was inaccurate, and examiners waited through the holidays for a message from the university as they didn’t have access to OSM. It further states that even after examiners reported for assessment, the process has been hit by connection issues, slow downloads and authentication problems.
Ms. Paranjape said teachers have to take classes and assist with college admissions as well, and poor infrastructure at most CAP centres adds to the delay. According to her, an examiner in Ratnagiri district had complained of not having access to the internet. “Many travel nearly 30 minutes to these centres only to find the system is down. Even when it works, one answer script takes nearly 15 minutes to download. The three-day training session was not useful either. It is harassment of sorts for teachers, and students are suffering.”
Waiting for results to be declared for the fourth-semester exam, Akhil Oka, who is pursuing a Masters in Politics, said the delay could affect students’ futures. “I have somehow convinced a foreign university to accept my B.A mark sheets for now. The July-end deadline looks unrealistic, and action should be taken against those responsible if MU fails to meet it.”
In an open letter to the V-C on June 26, Mr. Oka had said, “In case any student loses a year in India or abroad, or a job, just because of late declaration of results, the university should issue official letters apologising for the delay and taking responsibility of the student till the results are declared.”
Chelsea Prince, a Bachelor of Mass Media student awaiting her sixth-semester results, said, “I have applied for post-graduation courses abroad, but have conditional offers as I can’t provide them with the mark sheet. Classes begin in the first week of September, and they won’t accept my documents late. I am sure the July 31 deadline won’t be met. We can’t do anything but wait.”
Mr. Deshmukh was unavailable for comment despite several attempts by The Hindu .
