PGCET: UoM goofs up, declares erroneous results

Varsity flooded with requisitions from students for revaluation

Thousands of students, who appeared for the Common Entrance Test (PGCET) seeking entrance to postgraduate courses in the University of Mysore (UoM) are now in a fix, owing to the declaration of erroneous results.

The PGCET results of around 12,800 candidates, were announced online on Sunday, August 3. Examinations to various subjects were held from July 23 to 28.UoM authorities, who confirmed that there were errors in the results declared, said that efforts are being made to rectify the same, and facilitate the admission procedure for the students. 

While students alleged that the errors were rampant in the results of all subjects, UoM authorities said that it was restricted to a few subjects only.

During the day, close to 50 requisitions were submitted by students, urging the varsity to address their grievances.

On Monday, the administration section of Crawford Hall was populated by students who complained about the errors. 

Sachin Kumar, a student of Government First Grade College, Kuvempunagar, Mysore, secured only nine marks out of 50 in the entrance examination. “When I compared the answer key with the answers I had given in the examination, I realised that I should have secured 25 out of 50,” he said.

Another student, Sandhya H M of JSS Womens College, Chamarajanagar, said that she had faced similar problems. Having appeared for Botany examination, she said that her results showed 12 marks, while she had secured 40 marks as per the answer key released by the varsity.

Beeresh B, student of Government First Grade College, said that results of students who had attended one of the four sets of question papers in the entrance exams were correct. “Results of students who had attended ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ question papers are erroneous,” he said. Four sets of question papers were used in the entrance exam to avoid malpractice.

A M Sudhakara, Chief Coordinator of Postgraduate Entrance Exam Cell, said that the errors were with respect to results of “only six to seven departments”.

“We are assessing whether the errors were made during evaluation of the papers by the varsity or were the errors committed by the students,” he said.  

OMR problems

He suspected that the errors might have been caused while evaluating the OMR sheets of the candidates. “We had faced a similar problem during entrance examinations last year. An agency, based in Bangalore, has been entrusted the task of evaluating these answer sheets,” he said.

“We will sort out whether the error was caused by the software, or during data processing, so that such errors are not repeated in the future,” he said.

He also blamed that some mistakes were committed by students, as around five per cent of the students had not mentioned version codes in OMR sheets, he said.

When contacted, Vice-Chancellor of UoM, K S Rangappa said that varsity authorities were sorting out the problems, and revised results would be uploaded to the varsity website soon.