Teachers asked to assess MU papers again

If few teachers are receiving messages to report for assessment duty despite no answer booklets remaining in their subjects, they must be tagged to assess other papers to clear the backlog. VINOD MALALE, deputy registrar (public relations), MU

MUMBAI: The University of Mumbai (MU) has announced the examinations schedule of the next semester, but students are yet to get the results of the previous semester exam, held in November.

Teachers allege that the assessment software used for the online valuation of answer papers is facing a technical glitch.

Many teachers who had completed the assessments of the November exam in January, have been asked in this week to assess papers again for the same exam, resulting in chaos and anger among them.

“Our subject coordinators ensured that assessments are completed by mid-january. Despite completing the assessments by the deadline, I received an automated message this week from the university, requesting to finish assessment of remaining papers,” said a teacher from the Bachelors in Mass Media (BMM) department of a suburban college.

She said that many other teachers are also receiving similar SMSES from the university, despite clearing assessment of all papers in January itself.

Senior officials from various departments have been noticing that some answer booklets, which have either been uploaded late or were mixed with other subject papers, might be cropping up on the assessment software again.

“Either the examination department scanned some of the answer booklets late, or the software is once again mixing up the paper codes. Either way, it’s unacceptable that papers are being traced three months after the examination was conducted,” said the head of department, (unaided sections) MU.

MU officials refuted allegations that the assessment software is misplacing answer booklets.

“Almost 80-85% papers of unaided sections have already been assessed and we are requesting colleges to ensure that all teachers report for assessment duty,” said Vinod Malale, deputy registrar (public relations), MU.

“If few teachers are receiving messages to report for assessment duty despite no answer booklets remaining in their subjects, they must be tagged to assess other papers to clear the backlog,”