Mumbai University to replace online assessment firm

Mumbai: MeritTrac, the online assessment company that used to assess the answer papers of the Mumbai University (MU) students will soon be replaced by a new firm said the State education minister Vinod Tawde. This decision is taken following the alleged delay in declaring the results of the final year students whose examination was conducted in the month April and May.

 “The process of hiring a new agency has started and appointment will be done before the next semester examinations. MeritTrac will not conduct assessment henceforth,” Mr. Tawde said.

Due to server and technical problems, lack of pilot project and proper planning things went wrong in the summer term examination. After a delay of four months, MU declared the results in the month of September. However, even after declaring the results, problems continued as around 2,000 answer sheets were allegedly lost by the varsity, which created additional trouble for the students who had been waiting to see their results. This result, moreover, affected the students who had plans to move abroad to complete their further education.

When asked Nagendran Sundararajan, executive vice president of MeritTrac said, “I don’t want to comment on what the minister is saying. Moreover the contract is with MU so we should be talking to them directly.”

MU officials say that this four-month delay has disturbed the academic calendar of the MU and all the colleges affiliated under MU. “Following the result delay, the next examinations were affected, the assessment process by the teachers, assignments, college level examinations, etc,” an official of MU said.