Ahead of new academic year, University of Mumbai tries to clear exam assessment backlog

Even as admission to degree college courses has been stalled after protests against minority institutions being allowed to do away with the backward class quota, the University of Mumbai is trying to ensure completion of exam assessment work.

A meeting of college principals has been called by the university next week to find out what can be done to clear pending assessment work.

“With most of the technical snags solved and teachers’ problems cleared, our help centre hasn’t received many complaints in the last couple of weeks,” said a senior official from the examination and evaluation department of MU.

The official added that less than 5% of answer sheets are yet to be corrected in the BCom course whereas in courses like Bachelor in Management Studies (BMS), less than 10% papers are pending for assessment. “We have personally called teachers and encouraged them to finish their quota of assessment and at the same time, teachers too have sacrificed their vacations to finish assessment work,” he said. He added that even in BA department, less than 10% papers are pending assessment.

For the past few weeks, several meetings have been conducted with technical experts to ensure minimal glitches in the digital On Screen Marking (OSM) system. “The complaints from teachers and assessment centres have gone down compared to the last two semesters. That’s the main reason why despite vacations, assessment was taking place continuously,” said T Shiware, president of the Association of Non-Government Colleges.

While assessment of papers in most of the commerce courses is running at a smooth pace, the law department is still struggling to find teachers to finish pending assessment. “Colleges have been tapping all their resources to help with assessment. Thankfully, next semester onwards, the law examinations will be exempted from OSM process so the problem assessment won’t drag like it did the past one year,” said the principal of a law college.

With the aim of speeding up the assessment process, the university has also been requesting colleges to make special arrangements for teachers. “We have requested college principals to spare Third Year teachers from any kind of admission duty, so that they could continue focusing on assessment of papers,” said an official from MU.