MU takes necessary precautions to help prevent further delay of results
With a view to prevent the recurrence of a delay in declaration of results, the Mumbai University (MU) has taken certain damage control measures and precautions in the online assessment process. But the private agency MeritTrac appointed by the then Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the MU Sanjay Deshmukh, responsible for the recent delay, will continue to manage the assessment for a year which includes the upcoming semester. After this semester a decision will be taken whether to continue with the same agency.
The university has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the private agency for three years but the order to manage the online assessment through the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system is of one year. The agency will thus manage the assessment for the upcoming winter semester but whether it will continue for the remaining two years as per the MoU is questionable.
The decision will be taken based on the performance of the agency in this semester. Devanand Shinde, acting Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the MU, said, “Though the contract is signed for three years a decision will be taken based on the performance of the agency in this winter semester. This decision will be taken at the end of one year of the contract.”
Despite the chaos and delay, the university is continuing with the same agency as they cannot appoint any other agency mid way. Shinde said, “We cannot hire a new agency mid way to manage the assessment of the upcoming semester examination so we are continuing with the same agency. But we have taken the necessary precautions by identifying the loopholes in the system and have rectified the errors.”
The university claims to have rectified and improved both the physical shortcomings and technical glitches. “We conducted a training programme for teachers and principals during the Diwali vacations to explain the process and the method of assessment. The technical glitches at various centralised assessment process (CAP) centres are rectified. Also, a monitoring team will be sent at all CAP centres to assist and prevent any kind of issue,” Shinde added.
Students and teachers are still fearful as they do not want any delay to be repeated at any cost. “It is difficult to trust the process considering the prolonged delay that we have just witnessed. And again this semester has 452 examinations which is not a small number,” a teacher said. Around 32,000 results are still pending in the revaluation process while 25,959 have been cleared as per status of Friday.