MUMBAI: The artificial spike in Mumbai University’s final-year results, a principal said, will definitely have an impact on students seeking admissions to postgraduate professional courses in India and abroad. “It is difficult to judge the calibre of students. It is unfortunate for students with good academic record. More institutions will start relying on entrance tests for postgraduate admissions. Many autonomous colleges in the city have already started doing this,” he said.
Mumbai University has conducted three semester exams in the pandemic so far. As the final exam for the outgoing batch of 2020 was done in a hurry in October, there was no scope to control the exaggerated results. The exams were decentralised and conducted independently by colleges. Question papers only had MCQs then.
"Mumbai University could have evolved methods after the first two exams to bring in uniformity. If conducting online exams across seven districts simultaneously is not a solution, it could do random checks to ensure quality of question papers is maintained and proctoring methods and software are robust.-TimesView"
After two exams, while the university made an attempt to bring in uniformity in postgraduate exams this semester (May 2021) by setting their timetable and question papers, a large number of undergraduate exams are still decentralised and are being held at college cluster level. “For undergraduate professional courses such as engineering, law, pharmacy and architecture, the university changed the question paper pattern to include 50% subjective questions, where results were slightly still better,” said Vinod Patil, director, board of examination and evaluation.
While individual scores are not unrealistic with the changes introduced, a large number of students continue to clear the exam. Pune University, on the contrary, has continued to hold centralised exams even in the pandemic to maintain uniformity. After introducing video proctoring, the current exam also used audio proctoring for exams. MU may consider centralising more exams in October, said Patil.
A principal pointed out that difficulty level of question papers also makes a difference. “If high-order-thinking questions are included as MCQs, it will not be easier for students to score. But the online teaching-learning process is not the same as offline. If difficult questions are included, students may agitate, so many colleges may prefer to keep it simple,” said the principal. All this, however, will have a bearing on jobs. “A majority of university students even in non-Covid times were not considered employable, this will only prove to be a disaster,” he added. Employers will know students have cleared their graduation in Covid times. It will be worse for batches who have not seen college at all, said a principal.
