Semester begins, lecturers missing

BBM, BCom, BCA valuation is expected to complete only in 2nd week of January

According to sources, the valuation of answer scripts may go on till mid-January for BBM, till January 6 for BCom and till January 8 for BCA subjects. Till then, students will have to attend the classes sans lecturers!

Sources also said that BBM alone has about 90,000 answer scripts for valuation and there are only 64 qualified and eligible evaluators. Similar is the case with BCom. There are more than 76,000 answer scripts and the number of evaluators available is around 160. While the BBM answer script valuation is going on in University College, the BCom valuation is going on in SDM College, Mangalore.

When contacted, Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT) President Prof Ummappa Poojary too agreed that there is severe shortage of evaluators as the rule stipulates that the evaluators should have a minimum experience of 3 years in teaching and they should not be guest /part time lecturers. Unfortunately, there are very few permanent faculty in BBM stream while most of the faculty are either stop-gap lecturers or lecturers with less than 3 years of experience.

Student to suffer

Presuming that the evaluators would complete evaluation around January 15 (for BBM), January 6 (for BCom) and January 8 (for BCA), the faculty would miss around 20 days, 10 days and 12 days of classes in this semester respectively. “How can we make up so many lost hours as we will have to complete the syllabus by April. The only option is to conduct special classes on Saturdays and Sundays, which is nothing but a burden and stress on already stressed faculty,” a faculty member told Deccan Herald and alleged that the university, despite knowing that lecturers can not attend the classes till the valuation is over, have re-opened the semester classes as they (varsity) want to complete 112 days in the semester (which is mandatory). The exam is scheduled to start on April 25, 2011.

AMUCT also said that they have brought the issue to the notice of Vice Chancellor, Commissioner and Higher Education Minister.

Interestingly, out of the 137 affiliated colleges coming under the Mangalore university, nearly 120 colleges have BBM course and it is one of the most sought after courses.

VC says no problem

On the other hand, when contacted, Mangalore University Vice Chancellor Prof T C Shivshankarmurthy said that the delay in valuation of answer scripts will not affect much to the students.  Agreeing that there are less number of faculty for valuation of answer scripts for BBM, he said that he relaxed the 5-year teaching experience rule (to evaluate) to 3 years. With the relaxation in rules, he hoped that the valuation would end at the earliest, but evaluators themselves are apprehensive of the same.