Delivery of exam papers delayed, seating arrangements goofed up, adding to students' stress
There were last minute changes in exam centres and delayed delivery of question papers on the first day of Mumbai University BSc fifth semester exams on Saturday. It is clear that despite facing similar situations during earlier exams, the University hasn’t learned from its mistakes.
The University was conducting this semester exam for the first time. There were 21 different papers scheduled for Saturday in which 12,899 candidates appeared at nearly 100 exam centres across six districts.
Several candidates who reached their exam centres were shocked to learn that they had come at wrong place. Without realising how it would impact the students, the University had revised the seating arrangements of several exam centres the previous night, cancelling the original one sent to colleges earlier in the week.
The revised seating arrangement was put up on the website adding up to confusion. The 38 candidates who reached KC College, Churchgate were not on the list sent by University, confirmed Manju Nichani, principal of the college. “Half of them were from our college as there was discrepancy in the originally allotted centre and the centre given on the website.”
Several students from Sindhudurg were allotted the Mumbai centre. This was rectified Friday night. Rizvi College in Bandra were initially told to conduct exams for 41 candidates, on Friday they were told they would have to host 54 students. “Then on Saturday morning, we were told that only 14 candidates would come,” said a professor.
A large scale error in the seating arrangements was revealed days ahead of exam forcing varsity to revise it. While insiders blame outsourcing MKCL for the mix up in the candidates-centre list, top officials remained tight-lipped.
One web-designing student at Vaze College didn’t receive the question paper even after 40 minutes into the exam as the University forgot to send the question paper to the colleges.
Admitting the last minute changes in exam centres, Padma Deshmukh, controller of examination claimed, “Some 1,000 exam forms came to us two days ago. We had no other option but to allocate more students to certain exam centres and create more centres.”
When told that many candidates were actually removed from some centres which have been given handful of students, Deshmukh admitted, “There was some issue with the candidates’ lists so re-allocation was done at few centres.” She refused to comment on fault of MKCL.
Will BA exam be hassle-free?
While the University has failed in the first test, colleges are now concerned for Monday when TYBA exams will also start. “We don’t know what will happen with us,” said a TYBA student. “There would be no issue in BA as we have doubly checked everything,” claimed exam Controller .
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