BU gets tough on colleges not pitching in with evaluators

The Bangalore University (BU) administration has decided to act tough on colleges that are refusing to send lecturers for evaluation work. BU Vice-Chancellor (VC) B. Thimme Gowda said the university will not consider applications for affiliation from colleges that play truant with evaluation duty.

At a press conference here on Monday, Prof. Gowda said, “We have to take action now as some colleges are not sending lecturers for evaluation even after repeated reminders. We have learnt that degree lecturers are asked to teach Pre University classes as well. When they apply for affiliation the next time, we will ask for a list of valuators and check if they attended duty or not. Then we will decide whether to accept the application or not.”

The VC said the list included both private and government colleges. “For government colleges, we will write to the government seeking action against them,” he added.

Registrar (Evaluation) K.N. Ninge Gowda said a major problem in the evaluation process was the unwillingness of English and Commerce lecturers from many colleges to participate, especially as the number of answer scripts in these two subjects was the largest.

“There are nearly one lakh English answer scripts. We ideally need close to 700 valuators, but only 250 have turned up. As a result, over 28,000 answer scripts of the second semester are yet to be evaluated. Evaluation commenced on May 19 and is still going on,” the Registrar (Evaluation) said.

K.M. Nagaraj, president of the Bangalore University Teachers’ Council (BUTC), said fewer evaluators meant more workload for those who attend valuation, leading to monotony and errors.

“Results on time”

Prof. Ninge Gowda also said BU was announcing results of the sixth semester earlier than done in the past two years. “The valuation of 15 lakh answer booklets in nine undergraduate courses for over 5.84 lakh students in 580 colleges took anywhere between 24 hours to 20 days. The results of all the sixth semester exams will be announced by Tuesday,” he said.