MU results today, students fear for errors, postponement

New software creates problems, makes scholars’ future uncertain

Lakhs of students eagerly await the Mumbai University (MU) result to decide their future careers. The university is scheduled to announce the results on Monday. However, students are unsure if the varsity will postpone the announcement and are extremely worried for their future. Prolonged delays in the online paper correction and plethora of errors in the process have holed up a decision on the result announcement. Students claimed that “more than being nervous on our result day, we are more worried whether it will be declared or not”.

They also fear failure and errors in their results that are bound to creep in due to last moment haste in paper correction.

“Firstly, we are not sure till the last minute if our results will be declared. Secondly, even if it is declared we are sure that several errors will be there considering the unprecedented haste and technical errors. Some answers might be incorrectly marked or many may be even failed unnecessarily and then we will have to go through the tedious revaluation process,” a student said.

The deadline of declaring results on July 31 was given to the MU by the state Governor and Chancellor MU CH Vidyasagar Rao. As on July 28, over 3.70 lakh answer scripts were yet to be assessed. Besides, a large number of papers in commerce and law streams consist a large number of students which will surely take time in assessment. Out of 477 examinations, results of 104 have been declared while for 373 examinations, results are expected on July 31.

The results have to be generally declared within 45 days after the examination but this delay of almost two months was due to the new online assessment process. The MU under the leadership of V-C Sanjay Deshmukh introduced the new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system wherein over 22 lakh papers would be scanned, uploaded and assessed online. The scanning started in May (when it should have ideally been started in March after the examinations) and a new company MeritTrac, the Bengaluru-based IT firm, was hired for the process.

Several errors, technical glitches, internet and server lag, disparities in scanning, problems in uploading, delays in loading of answer scripts, wrong answer scripts being assigned and papers being misplaced have delayed the process. Teachers have been given ‘lecture free’ days and are compelled to complete the correction by hook or by crook. But there has been a lack of focus on moderation.

This has agitated the students and instilled tremendous fear among them. one of the students said, “We are in such a state now that all we want is our result in the correct form. Now that it is already late, the university can take few more days but check our papers correctly so that we do not have to knock their doors again for revaluation.”

Students are in deep trouble as some have already applied for higher studies but are unable to secure admissions. Some have opted and paid lakhs of rupees as application fees to foreign universities, applied for jobs, post-graduate courses, change of stream or are waiting to change cities for further education.