Mere sacking of MU VC not enough: Stakeholders
Students, teachers and educationists have claimed that the removal of the vicechancellor (VC) of the Mumbai University (MU) is not the only solution to solve the mess.
They have appealed to the state government and the Governor of Maharashtra to discontinue the online assessment through MeritTrac agency for the next semester examination and initiate a judicial inquiry into this entire mess.
Members of the Students Law Council have written a letter to the Governor stating that the MeritTrac company was responsible for the evaluation mess as 3,600 answer scripts have been misplaced.
These students are of the view that this company should be blacklisted and not be allowed to conduct online assessment for the upcoming semester examinations.
While on the other hand, the MU has signed a contract with MeritTrac for three years for the online assessment process.
Bhalchandra Mungekar, former VC of the MU, said, “This company should not be allowed at any cost. In fact, the university should not conduct online assessment for upcoming examinations. If the university still wants to do it then it should give an affidavit to the Bombay High Court, stating that the entire assessment process would be done accurately and the results would be declared within 45 days.” The students have also demanded that the MU reveal the status of missing answer scripts in public. A student said, “If the university has misplaced the answer scripts they should reveal a public status report. They should declare publicly the details of the missing papers.”
While a teacher added, “The higher-level officers of the university should be appointed till December. And the reevaluation process should be completed soon.”
A thorough judicial enquiry should be initiated into this entire mess as per experts. Mungekar said, “There is some vested interest in this entire mess for the university has never witnessed such a situation in 160 years of its existence. A judicial enquiry will help nail the culprits responsible for this mess and also avoid recurrence of such a situation in the future.”