University lists different timings for MA paper on website, students’ hall tickets

On Friday morning, colleges hosting the MA Part-II exams of the Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL), University of Mumbai (MU), were caught by surprise after students failed to turn up on or before the scheduled time of the paper at 11 am.

The confusion worsened when students started trooping in at 1.30 pm claiming to be there for the 3 pm paper. This was the scene at all colleges that were the centres owing to a mix-up in the timetable put up by the university on its website and the timing mentioned in the hall tickets of the students.

According to an examination chief conductor in a college in the Western suburbs, despite the political science paper ‘State Politics in India of MA – Part II’ being scheduled for 11 am in the morning session, not a single student turned up. “I called up other chief conductors and was informed that the situation was similar everywhere. I then realised there must have been some slip-up on the part of the university and hence, called up the helpline number,” said the chief conductor.

The information sent the examination section of the university in a tizzy and the mystery of the missing students was resolved when they got to the root of the problem. “While the timetable scheduled the exam for the morning session, the hall-ticket said it was at 3 pm. Students cannot be blamed for it and we accommodated them though it meant vacating classes that were previously reserved for other exams,” said another chief conductor.

Former senate member from Yuva Sena Pradeep Sawant said that such carelessness was shocking. He alleged that owing to the goof-up, MU had to send another question paper to replace the morning paper (which is a practice to prevent leakage) that had already been printed by the exam centres. “Students complained that they received the question papers late and this added to their stress. The university should do away with the ad-hoc controller of examination and appoint a permanent one to avoid such embarrassment,” he said.

Acting controller of examination Deepak Wasave however refuted the allegations.