Mumbai University convocation today to see lowest grad numbers in 8 yrs

MUMBAI: Mumbai University’s convocation scheduled on Wednesday probably will see the lowest number of students graduating in eight years. Data from the university shows only around 1.5 lakh students, including 79,741 girls and 71,907 boys, will be awarded their degrees for this year (see box). These students graduated in the academic year 2022-23 will be awarded their degrees.

Educationists attribute the decrease to “side-effects” of the Covid-19 pandemic. TOI had earlier highlighted the difficulties students faced in attempting the first full-fledged physical exams after the pandemic. Teachers and principals, though, say that it will not have a long-term impact and students’ performance has improved over the past year.

Data also showed that only in the two pandemic years, the numbers of boy students graduating from Mumbai University exceeded the number of girls. Besides, in most years, including this year’s convocation, girls have done better in university-level exams.

During the two years of the pandemic, exams had moved online, and question papers were in the multiple-choice question (MCQ) format. The success rate in most courses had shot up to 90%-plus during the pandemic and more than two lakh students graduated in each of the two years. In 2022-23, the number dropped by 26% compared with 2012-22. In absolute numbers, graduating students have gone down from 2.1 lakh to 1.5 lakh in the past one year. Compared with the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, when the number of graduating students stood at 1.9 lakh, though, the number has dropped only by 20%.

Neha Jagtiani, principal of R D National College, said the performance of students was affected when they came back to college after two and a half years. “In the three-year courses, this batch of students completed their first two years at home giving online exams. In the third year, we found many could not write answers. The performance of students was hit, especially in science programmes. With poor performance of students in undergraduate courses, postgraduate admissions were impacted. We did not get enough students for some of the science courses,” said Jagtiani, adding this year, the performance of students has definitely improved and will return to normalcy in the next one year. “At the college level, the pandemic gap will not have a long-term effect,” she said.

In the first semester exams, after tests moved offline in 2022-23, TOI had reported that the success rate in most exams was around 35% and that two-thirds of students failed the papers. Teachers had complained that many students were submitting blank answer sheets, leaving no scope for giving marks and many had lost the writing practice. A university official said the convocation data numbers are incremental and some results that are pending may get added up to the overall numbers.


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