Friday, Apr 19, 2024 | Last Update : 02:46 AM IST
Mumbai University gets new acting VC, pro-VC
Under fire over results crisis, Mumbai University VC Deshmukh goes on a ‘vacation’.
Mumbai: The state education minister, Mr Vinod Tawde on Wednesday announced that Mumbai University (MU)’s Vice-Chancellor (VC) Dr. Sanjay Deshmukh has gone on a ‘vacation’ and therefore the government has appointed Dr. Devanand Shinde, the VC at Shivaji University of Kolhapur, as MU’s acting VC. Mr Tawde also announced the appointment of Dr. Dhiren Patel, the director of Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute, as MU’s Pro-VC.
Both the new appointees have been authorized to clear the mess related to the MU final year exams ‘ results, which are delayed by at least three-and-a half months thereby inconveniencing students. MU has already missed two deadlines — July 31 and August 5 — on declaring the results and is now aiming to declare them by August 15.
Deshmukh came up with the idea of making the assessment process ‘online’ by bringing ‘On-Screen Marking’ system. However, the idea backfired in the early week of June when the teachers failed to cooperate as majority teachers out of the total strength that is 9,000 plus went on their ‘summer vacation’.
The new OSM system failed to take the load in the server as this academic year there were more than 19 lakh answer sheets that needs to be assessed. Technical glitches, poor Internet service, slow server continued to prick the system leading to slowing down the assessment process. Till Wednesday, 300 results have been declared out of 477 examinations. Still more than 2 lakh answer sheets are pending to be assessed by the assessors of the varsity.
All fingers were pointed Deshmukh as OSM was his idea. Political parties, student’s organisation, students, teachers everybody started staging protest against the VC.
New acting VC
He is the Professor of Chemical Technology and Visiting Scholar at University of Oxford. He is also the former VC (Acting) of Savitribai Phule University, Pune. He has had 25 years of teaching experience and 28 years of experience in Research specialising in Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Design and Pharmaceutical Analysis.
