Mumbai: Students from autonomous colleges protest against offline exams

Raising concerns over the disparity in the mode of exams conducted for the final year students the students of autonomous colleges in Mumbai are campaigning against the offline exams which will be conducted from this weekWhile the Mumbai University MU students will get to write the online exams in multiplechoice question MCQ format the students from autonomous colleges will have to appear for the longform theorybased offline exams The students fear this will affect their final year scoresThe students from autonomous colleges such as St Xavierrsquos Thakur Jai Hind Narsee Monjee NMCCE and Mithibai if the syllabus and degree awarded by MU and their colleges are the same then there should not be disparity in the mode exams are conductedA BCom student from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics who will appear for the final year exam starting March 24 and did not wish to be named says ldquoEven if our college is autonomous we will be awarded a degree from MU In that case we want equal rights to appear for the exams online like the students of MU We donrsquot have problem writing exams offline but the students appearing for online exams MCQ will score better than students writing longform theory answers in offline exams We feel this is an injustice done to us This will lead to disparity in final scores which will affect our future prospectsrdquoThe students were earlier preparing for the offline exams On March 4 after the MU announced that its final year summer examination will be held virtually the students of several autonomous colleges raised objections against the offline exams in their collegesA 21yearold thirdyear student adds ldquoWhile we raised our concerns with the college authority a few days after the MU announcement they took a counselling session with students making us understand why the offline exams are conducted They never heard our issues though We were told lsquoeven if you score less people will know that you are bestrsquo It was just oneway communicationrdquoAnother thirdyear student from NM College on the condition of anonymity says ldquoAround 40 student representatives attended the counselling session We are concerned about the Cumulative Grade Points Average CGPA marks as we will be competing for higher studies and job opportunities with students who appeared for exams virtually and have scored better than us After the studentsrsquo protest now the college authorities are not approachablerdquoMany students created Twitter accounts to bring the issue to the notice of the state governmentShobhit Mishra 20 a TYBSc student from Mithibai College who will be appearing for his exam from March 26 says ldquoA formal letter has been submitted to theGovernorrsquos Bhagat Singh Koshyari office to seek his intervention We are hoping to get a response and meet him After getting no positive response from the college authorities we also tried to solve the issue with lsquoGandhigirirsquo by sending flowers and a lsquoget well soonrsquo card to our collegersquos managing authorities The college authorities donrsquot want to meet us We have now installed banners outside the college on the disparity issue and our demandsrdquoBesides the youth wing of political parties supporting them the students also met the statersquos education minister Uday Samant last week to seek his intervention in the matterStudents from Thakur College too had objected to an offline exam the college authorities on March 21 reversed its decision and issued a new circular announcing that the final year exams will be conducted virtually from March 28ldquoIn any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothingrdquo Thakur College of Science and Commerce has made its decision We request other autonomous colleges to do the same pictwittercomfiqeXYFmCvmdash Ojasvi Isha Ojasvi_isha March 21 2022Speaking about the other difficulties faced by outstation students an NM College student adds ldquoAccommodation is a major problem as students will have to come to Mumbai for a week just to appear for offline exams To take PG accommodation the students will have to give a onemonth rent Many students who donrsquot have any relatives in Mumbai will have to either search for PG accommodation or a hotel Staying in a hotel room for a week is also not affordable While the final yearrsquos fee is around Rs 40000 the students will end up paying more than 20 per cent of the amount to book a hotel room for a weekrdquoWe will be awarded an EMBA degree rather than an MBA degreeIn a similar incident MBA students from KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Vidya Vihar protested on the college campus after the authorities declared that they wont change their decision of conducting offline exams The MBA exams will begin on March 25The students have been attending lectures online from their hometown and they wanted the institute to conduct exams virtually The students also complained about not receiving study material books from the instituteA secondyear MBA student from the institute who did not wish to be named says The institute is forcing us to attend the exams offline Earlier the institute authorities had accepted to conduct virtual exams in case 70 per cent of the students agree to take the exams online The institute shared a Google form on March 21 asking about the mode of exam preferred by the students More than 80 per cent of the students over 400 students agreed to online exams Still they are adamant about conducting offline examsAnother female student adds Multiple mails have been sent to the institute authorities by various students but we havent received any reply We were also said that the degree which will be awarded to us might be an Executive MBA EMBA degree rather than an MBA degree as we have attended lectures onlineMeanwhile EMBA is a postgraduate program for working people and its a parttime course compared to MBA which is full time EMBA is mostly pursued by executives managers leaders and other professionalsAs not many students reside in Mumbai and will be travelling from across India for offline exams the authorities should consider various aspects such as our health financial issues and logistics It will be helpful for us to appear for an online exam adds the studentDue to protests by students there was a police bandobast inside the college to maintain law and order Sunil Kale Senior inspector of Tilak Nagar Police Station said The institute contacted us as there were over 100 students protesting against the offline exams We had sent a team of six police officials to the institute to control any untoward incident and the situation remained under control