Mumbai University not among top 150 Indian varsities: A look back at MU's past year of chaos

For the third consecutive year, The University of Mumbai failed to find a spot among the top 100 colleges of India. As in 2017, the varsity was ranked in the 151-200 band in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) list, released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Tuesday, this year as well.

In 2016, the varsity was missing from the list of best universities and institutions across the country as the authorities had failed to send the required information to the MHRD.

In 2017, the university had successfully gathered and submitted the required data. However, the university performed poorly , ranking between 151 and 200.

Dr Radha Srinivasan, who was recently appointed as the Chairperson of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), cited the university’s inability to submit complete data as the primary reason for the university not featuring in the list.

“With over 700 affiliated colleges within its ambit and some excellent post graduate departments, it definitely has the potential of making it to the top institutes. A lot of data regarding research and other achievements, however, was not shared by departments in time probably due to the whole onscreen assessment issue which might have led to the poor performance. We are now working to streamline the process and are hopeful that we would have the complete data soon,”  a DNA report quoted Srinivasan as saying.

AD Sawant, former pro vice-chancellor of the varsity said the university is lagging behind as “there are no efficient people to lead the university”. “With every coming day, the current officials continue to work in a lax manner which has led to these results,” Sawant was quoted as saying in the report.

The chaos in the administration last year over an unprecedented delay in declaration of results could have led to the fall in ranking, said officials, according to an Indian Express report.

The past year has been chaotic for the University of Mumbai as it faced  sharp criticism for its unprepared and half-baked implementation of an online assessment system, which lead to a delay in results  of over 4 lakh students. After several postponements and confusion that lasted nearly four months, the varsity  finally declared results for April-May  exams in September 2017. The results should have ideally been announced in June-July.

Amid widespread criticism and protest, Vice-Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh , who was responsible for the introduction of the online system, was asked to step down until further notice, and projected scores and provisional certificates were provided to students who approached the university for assistance.

Later, it emerged that the university had ignored warnings from the office of university chancellor and Governor of Maharashtra, Ch Vidyasagar Rao that had anticipated a delay in results owing to the decision to switch to an online assessment system that would result in a time-consuming scanning of over 18 lakh answersheets.

At least a week before the varsity appointed the agency which implemented the online system, the chancellor’s office had written to Vice-Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, indicating the implementation of the ambitious new system could delay results.

Firstpost  had accessed the minutes of the 28 April, 2017 meeting of the Management Council, which showed that three out of four representatives were against Deshmukh’s idea of introducing online evaluation system for every stream at the same time. Instead, the representatives — Joint Secretary Siddharth Kharat, Director of Higher Education Rohidas Kale and Director of Technical Education Subhash Mahajan — while agreeing to the idea in spirit, had advised Deshmukh to implement the plan in a phased manner. However, Deshmukh had overruled the suggestion.

But, after the vice-chancellor missed the 31 July deadline set by Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, the knives were out for Deshmukh.

A senior official had told Firstpost, “We feel that enough time was given to Deshmukh. During a 28 April meeting too, we had opposed the move to implement in a hurry. We brought this issue to his notice in June too, yet no corrective measures were taken. We are serious about our students’ future, but the vice-chancellor is enjoying his foreign tour without the Chancellor’s permission.”

After missing his 31 July deadline, Rao issued a show cause notice to Deshmukh over his failure to release the results of over 4.77 lakh students.

An analysis of the online process had revealed that the infrastructure required for such a major upheaval of the system was highly inadequate; that examiners were not equipped with sufficient training and information; and the abysmal coordination between various agencies responsible for different tasks had paralysed the whole process.