MU gives proof: Engineers are technically challenged

The University of Mumbai has just found a reason to believe academicians across India who have maintained that engineers lack practical knowledge.

The university realised that principals and professors of engineering colleges have the least practical knowledge as compared to law and pharmacy colleges after conducting the November-December exams in 2012. Question papers for these exams were sent to the centres via weblink to ensure that papers are not leaked. Many principals and teachers of engineering colleges, who are engineers themselves, faced difficulty in grasping the technique which was used for the first time.

“While principals of all 14 pharmacy and 26 law colleges managed to retrieve papers without any technical glitches, it was surprising to that over 20 engineering colleges out of 61 experienced problems. The most common problem was the use of wrong passwords which blocked their access to the weblink after three wrong entries,” said an official from the university’ examination house. He added that colleges in rural areas performed better that the ones in the city.

Prof M Farooqui, director, University Computerisation Centre and Centre of Computing Facility, said, “A report will be sent to the vice-chancellor soon. A training workshop will be recommended for these colleges.” He, however, refused to divulge the names of the colleges.

A principal of a city-based engineering college said, “There were some glitches. But those were reasonable as engineering stream has 13 branches and around 60 papers. Pharmacy and law colleges don’t have these many.”