Mumbai University has missed two deadlines for declaring its exam results (File)
Students of Mumbai University are celebrating Independence Day this year - with anxiety at the back of their mind - as the third deadline to declare results is on August 15. The university has already missed the two first deadlines for declaring its exam results, on July 31 and August 5. Over 19 lakh answer sheets have had to be assessed online, but it is quite clear the university was unprepared for the transition.
The demand for Vice Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh's resignation has been growing as he pushed through with the change in the evaluation system. He has gone on leave following the fracas.
The Bombay High Court had
asked Mumbai University to respond within two weeks to a petition by a teachers' association, which said the university went ahead with the transition without ensuring essential infrastructure such as computers and Internet connection were in place.
The university's alleged mishandling of the transition has also led to calls for resignation of Maharashtra Education Minister Vinod Tawde.
Shiv Sena's Youth Wing President Aaditya Thackeray
recently wrote that "...In this mess, it is not just the moral responsibility for the Education Minister and the Vice Chancellor to resign, but also a practicality needed to save the future of lakhs of students! The ease with which both have dealt with this crisis is shameful. Our university is nowhere close to being in the top 500 (of the world) and such negligence and ignorance is only allowing it to worsen!"
Sachin Pawar, a third-year law student, told NDTV that students met with the vice chancellor yesterday. "He said they are trying to declare the results as soon as possible, and told us the problems with the systems still persist. Everyone is celebrating Independence Day and we are apprehensive about our results," Mr Pawar said.
Another third-year law student, Abhishek Bhat, said the university should have implemented the plan as a trial and finalised it based on the outcome of the experiment. "What is happening at Mumbai University is complete nonsense. If the university was not sure of the technology, why implement it on such a large scale in one go?" Mr Bhat said.