Failure of a masterpiece

                                                  

                                   

                                    Failure of a masterpiece

- Aditya Bivalkar

Online Assessment of the answer sheets, a promising idea on the paper but in reality, the idea failed miserably. It is now seen as an epitome of failure of a perfect idea because of the poor implementation. It was considered as a transforming idea by the Vice Chancellor of University of Mumbai & it got front page coverage in most of the newspapers. But as time passed the idea of online assessment of all the courses looked like a mere joke & this could probably be the end of the career for VC as there is a rise in the demand for his resignation.

The Online Assessment project is considered as a masterpiece project by Mr. Sanjay Deshmukh. As far as his talent and vision is considered, the project looked good on the papers. It forced the teachers to get updated and get connected with the technology. If the same project would have been finalized before August 2016, it would have been a really successful project for the academic year 2016-17; but the key decisions such as the appointment of company, tender processing were taken in Feb 2017 & it was just a miniscule beginning of a majuscule mess. The span of two months is really small for a huge platform like Mumbai University to successfully tackle the challenge. 

University conducts around 450 examinations every year & to assess all of these exams online in a span of two or three months (technically by rule it should be done by 45 days) is closer to impossible. Hence, the assessment game failed miserably. The original intention was to enhance transparency to cure malpractices and deliver prompt results. It was really an excellent attempt in theory. But it failed to gain practical support. If you leave your logic behind, the things are doomed to go for a toss. Something similar is happening currently with the Mumbai University.

The Officials who gave the final approval to this mega project didn’t test its practical threats. The tenders of the project were opened in Feb & after reopening, the agency was finalized in April. Finally, the assessment was actually started in the month of May. This results in the delay of the results. One popular company from finance sector had approached the University for Free Service to provide technical support to the university but the condition was limited number of the courses. The officials from the university rejected the proposal & now it is troubling them a lot. In my opinion, they should have opted for limited number of courses than going for all the courses.

The transport of the answer sheets, its scanning, uploading those to the system are very tedious jobs. One Answer sheet of the Student has 40 pages and the number of students is in lacs, hence technically the scanning part, the sorting and storage part of answer sheet were really difficult. The idea of the assessment was far away from the grass root realities. Hence the equation of the number of answer sheets & the time didn’t match. Even today the university is struggling to match the deadline & looks like they are going to miss the deadline. Server crash of the assessment system, poor support from the faculty, internal politics & interference of the political parties is making the overall process more difficult.

This should be a learning lesson for Mumbai University. From here onwards the University should test the practicality & reality of the concept before implementing it. Online assessment should remain there for every year but the training of the teachers, testing of the software & study of the issue should be done well in advance. The University should assign the responsibility of all these support related works to a special agency & company like NSDL or something similar to it to prevent the errors and unwanted delay. The program would be helpful, if the loopholes are eliminated. For this vision Sanjay Deshmukh should get some credit. Currently many people are demanding offline assessment program again but instead, the errors in online program should be minimized as soon as possible!

                          
                                           (Teachers doing assessment, PC : Times Of India archives)

Here are some positives & Negatives from the assessment program

Positives :-

* Online assessment connects the examination with the technology
* connects teachers to the technology & forces them to learn it
* One step closer to a paperless management
* good visionary decision which will help to increase the ranking of the university in the future

Negatives :-

* No planning & execution without strategy
* Delay in Results which affects the careers of lacs of students
* poor software & incorrect testing of the software
* Rise to political fight & interference
* miserably failed time management



Thank you.