Wrong question holds up MA exam for over two hours

MUMBAI: Blunders in the Mumbai University examinations continued on Thursday, with over 25 MA students receiving the wrong paper. Students of Political Science (semester IV) had to give their papers two hours after the scheduled time because the university first sent a paper which contained a wrong set of questions. Twenty-six students appeared for the Indian Government & Politics Paper at one centre each at Kalyan and Raigad.
Students appearing at the Kalyan centre received a question paper at 11am, the specified time of the examination. However, they soon realized that the questions were not right. They brought this to the notice of the college authorities, who contacted university officials.
Authorities at the centre said they informed the university soon after students pointed out the mistake. “We checked the subject and code of the paper and there was no mistake on our part. We also contacted a professor from the students’ college to confirm the mistake. The university finally sent the correct paper at about 1.15pm,” said Shobana Nair, general manager of the Kalyan college.
“The paper finally began at 1.45pm. For over two hours we were at the centre, waiting to hear from the university. We were given refreshments, but the situation was very stressful,” said Prashant Chandanshiv, a student. “We will write to the university demanding an explanation,” he added.
The students have already approached senate member Sudhakar Tamboli to take up the issue. “The university should think about the mental agony it is causing students,” Tamboli said.
University officials said it was the paper setter’s fault. ““The first question had an error, the values needed to be corrected. The exam started at 11 am. We ensured the corrections were made by 12pm. We are initiating action against the paper setter and a show cause notice will be served,” said Dinesh Bhonde, controller of examinations.
On Monday, the TYBMM paper on Financial Management had errors worth almost 15 marks that caused panic among students as they were rectified late by the university. “They (the corrections) came in the last half an hour. I had to do my answers all over again and lost a lot of time,” said a student who took the examination at a centre in Kandivli. Students said the errors were crucial. “We could not arrive at an answer as two crucial numbers were missing. We solved the problem but came to a wrong answer and then came the correction. I could not complete my paper,” said a student. However, Ancy Jose, the university’s chairperson of the board of studies for BMM said, “It was not a major error. We rectified it on time.”