The University of Mumbai‘s Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE) has begun facing roadbumps in the maiden voyage of its new National Education Police (NEP)-integrated master’s courses. Nearly 30 of the 86 students from the MA Geography distance courses have still not received the results of their Semester I exams, which were conducted in January.
In the meantime, students have already appeared for their Semester II examinations in July and are about to enter the next year of their course. With their results in limbo, nearly half the class strength remains oblivious to their academic progress. “The results are especially important for me because I hope to take the UGC NET examination this December. However, the exam registration requires students to present their Masters’ scores,” said a 22-year-old student from Mumbai.
Seeing that their peers received the marks while theirs remained missing, the students approached their course coordinators, but to no avail. Eventually, when they reached the CDOE office at Kalina, the students were asked to go back to the examination centres and get their proof of attendance.
“We did due diligence and furnished all necessary documents to multiple university departments in August. Come October, the results still remain missing,” she added. According to students, the MU course has attendees from Chiplun, Sindhudurg, Dahanu, Pune, and Navi Mumbai, too, who find it difficult to visit the Kalina-based office for follow-ups.
“Initially, the course was a good experience, and it felt like I had made the right decision. But after the first semester, things changed. The result wasn’t declared, and strangely enough, the second semester was conducted without announcing the first-semester results,” said a Navi Mumbai-based student who is preparing for competitive exams.
“Every time I go to the university from Navi Mumbai, it’s only for admission or result enquiries. I get answers like “come back next time” or “no progress yet”. This gets very demotivating for students. With this situation, I’m unable to focus properly on either the preparation or the course education, since there’s no progress happening on either side,” he added.
When mid-day approached MU, it found that technical glitches like improper QR generation has taken a toll on the result generation system, and a large share of papers never reached the examiners. “We are in the process of swiftly rectifying these glitches and all the students concerned should have their results in a few days,” said Dr Shivaji Sargar, the director of CDOE.
