Fuming at the decision taken by authorities to reschedule a leaked paper to April 11, students have decided to carry out a protest on Wednesday at Azad Maidan
Final-year Commerce students of Mumbai University are an angry lot. The reason: most TYBCom students had decided to go on long vacations following their exams, but owing to a leaked exam paper, they will now have to reschedule their plans. As a sign of protest, students have decided to stage an agitation against the university on April 4 at Azad Maidan.
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‘Enough is enough’: Students spreading the word of the protest against the university at Azad Maidan on Facebook. File pic
The exams were scheduled to end on March 29. However, after the fracas at BNN College in Bhiwandi, where the Marketing and Human Resource Management question paper was leaked (see box) the exam was rescheduled to April 11. This change has caused disgruntlement among the students. “I booked my tickets for a pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi. The sudden announcement of the exam has come as a shock because my plans have gone awry. Why should all students suffer owing to a mistake by three professors? Too many mistakes and goof-ups have taken place and in order to put an end to this we have decided to protest on April 4. We are spreading word of the protest through SMS and Facebook and are hoping for a big turnout,” said Aditya Pawar, a student from a South Mumbai college.
Echoing the same frustration, Dhaval Vora, another aggrieved student, said, “The question paper was leaked unintentionally by college authorities. Why should the university punish students? I was planning to go to Jaipur on April 9 but thanks to the university I will have to reschedule. All these problems starting from the hall ticket to the leaked exam is because there is no proper management at the university.” Another student added, “We shall not stand for this. We will protest against the university as all this mess is because of mismanagement.”
Root of problem
And it’s no longer just an issue at the students’ level. Following the goof-ups and consequent problems, Maharashtra Minister for Higher and Technical Education Rajesh Tope met Governor K Sankaranarayanan at Raj Bhavan yesterday to discuss the problems plaguing the university. Even other senate members of the university said that the problems were owing to mismanagement and placed the blame squarely with the vice-chancellor.
“Such goof-ups are bound to sully the reputation of the university. Such issues occur only because of mismanagement,” said Dr Krishna Patil, principal of Siddharth College and senate member. Dilip Karande, another senate member said, “If the vice-chancellor can’t follow simple instructions, what makes people think that he can conduct the exams capably. He isn’t capable to handle the administration of the varsity.”u00a0
Paper leak
On March 27, when students came to appear for their Business Economics examination at BNN College, Bhiwandi, they were instead given the Marketing and Human Resource Management question paper for an examination scheduled for the following day (March 28). Around 510 students at BNN College were given the papers accidentally.
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