Mumbai University: Relief, as answersheets of first exam scanned successfully

This time, the Board of Examinations had assured students that the answer sheets would reach CAP centre within three days of an exam and assessment would begin by the sixth day. (File Photo)

Answer sheets of University of Mumbai students, who took the first examination of the winter semester on November 8, have reached the assessment centres and have been scanned successfully. Officials in the Examination and Evaluation department of the varsity heaved a sigh of relief on Monday as the first hurdle in the assessment process of answer sheets had been overcome without glitches. “The entire lot of answer sheets of the examination held on November 8 has been scanned successfully. They are now being prepared for evaluation, which should start in a couple of days,” said Arjun Ghatule, Acting Director, Examinations and Evaluation.

For the summer semester examinations, one of the major challenges that had contributed to the delay in publishing the results was that answer sheets could not reach the Central Assessment Process (CAP) centre on time and scanning was time consuming. This time, the Board of Examinations had assured students that the answer sheets would reach CAP centre within three days of an exam and assessment would begin by the sixth day.

“Our first goal has been achieved. The papers are being made ready for assessment. Simultaneously, we are conducting training workshops for principals on how to use the onscreen marking software,” said Ghatule.

The biggest challenge for the newly-appointed management is to streamline the assessment process and declare the results within the 30-day period stipulated by the Maharashtra Public Universities Act. “We are aiming to release the results by 45 days. Evaluation is our major concern right now,” said Ghatule.

The university will conduct exams for 481 full-time and 604 part-time programmes in the winter semester. Over 4.1 lakh students are expected to take the examinations and 282 CAP centres have been set up. More than 14,000 teachers have been identified to evaluate answer sheets.