Relaxed varsity has no clear assessment plan: Teachers

One would think that after the ridicule and outrage heaped upon the University of Mumbai after it famously bungled the onscreen marking process last year, holding up results of thousands of students for months, sound judgment would have made its way into the system, hopefully on time.

But the relaxed varsity is yet to chalk out a clear plan for assessing the ongoing summer semester examination, teachers say.

With the delay in commencing the fresh academic year due to the results imbroglio last year, exams for some prominent courses including B Com will end only by the first week of May, leaving hardly any time for teachers to assess papers.

Summer vacations kick in on May Day and teachers are worried they will have to forego their vacations as they haven't been given any clues as to the academic calendar.

"Until the first week of May, we are busy with supervision work. Evaluation for first- and second-year courses needs to be done by May end so the new academic year can start in June. The university has not given us any instructions about what the schedule for assessments is going to be, and this has all of us worried," said a senior professor from a SoBo college.

"Many of us have booked tickets for vacations.Why can't the university plan such an important task?" said another faculty member.

Over 3 lakh undergraduate and postgraduate varsity students will appear for the ongoing examinations. A setback in the assessment process would hold back the announcement of results, leaving lakhs of students in the lurch, as they were last year.

'RESULTS ON TIME'

Vinod Malale, deputy registrar, PR, said, “Students will get their results on time.” He also said letters intimating teachers about the schedule of the coming academic year were sent out a couple of days ago.