First-year law students from the 2021-22 batch, whose term was delayed by six months on account of late admissions, were giving their semester II exams on Tuesday. The constitutional law paper was supposed to start at 11am. In the e-delivery mechanism, the university uploads the question paper and colleges are expected to download it and print copies. “Minutes after the papers were distributed to students, the university realised that the question paper from the last exam was issued. They alerted the colleges to abruptly stop the exam and wait for the new paper. Students had already started attempting the paper and were annoyed when we had to take it back,” said a principal, adding that it was complete chaos as they had over 300 students spread across classrooms.
In another college, the question papers were sent to the classrooms but were yet to be distributed.
“Students were given time till 2pm to write the exam. Due to this, at a few colleges, the five-year LLB exam scheduled in the afternoon was delayed,” said a teacher.
With Mumbai University returning to centralised offline exams after two years of the pandemic, authorities need to get their act in place and plug all the loopholes. The major exams, taken by over 50,000 students, are yet to commence, and a similar glitch could inconvenience a larger section of students. Question papers should be monitored thoroughly before sending these to colleges. Officials responsible for glitches should be penalised
At some colleges, students waited in their respective classes. Since these students were giving a ‘delayed’ summer exam, the Mumbai University followed the paper pattern from the April-May exam, which had 50% multiple-choice and 50% descriptive questions.
A Mumbai University spokesperson said that “due to some technical reason, the previous year’s paper was sent to the colleges by mistake”. He added, “After realising the matter, the new constitutional law paper was immediately sent to the colleges. The revised paper was given to students at around 12 noon and students were given extra time.”
Former senate member Pradeep Sawant, from the Yuva Sena, said the varsity does not have a full-time official on any of the senior posts, from director (examinations and evaluations), to registrar, pro-vice-chancellor and vice-chancellor. “Who will take responsibility for such goof-ups? It is just the beginning of the exam season and the major exams are yet to commence,” said Sawant.
