MU staff fear repeat of results chaos

Even as officials at the University are trying to ensure that the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for the upcoming winter semester examinations goes smoothly, teachers and principals are anxious that the mess might repeat.

In recent meetings and training sessions conducted by the varsity, several teachers raised concerns over the glitches in the OSM system as they fear the varsity is still not prepared for the overhaul. "Even as the university claims to have fixed all the issues with respect to OSM, one cannot anticipate how the assessment will be for the winter semester. The first time around, even after fixing the system and training sessions, several issues with respect to teacher tagging and mixing of papers did arise," said a teacher from a college in south Mumbai on the condition of anonymity.

This year, the varsity has decided to send letters and emails to all the teachers eligible to assess papers. Even as the varsity has created a master list of 14,000 eligible teachers, principals are doubtful that this would translate into more number of evaluators.

"A large number of teachers in colleges for courses in commerce, management, law, etc are appointed on a temporary basis. Such teachers cannot be compelled to evaluate papers thus leading to fewer papers being evaluated each day," said a college principal.

INEXPERIENCED

• DNA had reported that 3,700 teachers of various colleges and university departments have not evaluated a single paper of the summer examinations.