CU show causes its teacher guilty of marking mess

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, July 26, 2007
THE CALCUTTA University (CU) will punish examiners responsible for the marking mess in Part II marksheets of 47 Biharilal College students.
Due to marking error, 32 students of the college’s food and nutrition department got between 93 and 97 in the sixth paper of food and nutrition, while 15 students scored between 10 and 12. The flaw was detected after the marksheets were distributed on July 24. Realising the mistake, the university issued corrected marksheets.
Taking serious note of the negligence that caused the mistake, the university on Thursday decided to discuss the matter at the next under-graduate council meeting. “The teachers involved in the incident will be punished. We will first have to discuss and see how the whole thing occurred,” said Suranjan Das, pro vice-chancellor (academic) of CU.
The university has also decided to pull up invigilators of the New Alipore College, where the 47 students of the Biharilal College took their exam.
“The sixth paper of food and nutrition had two 50 marks units. It was the duty of the invigilators to give two separate answer sheets for both the units. Had that been done, the episode could have been avoided,” said Debashish Biswas, deputy controller of exam of the CU.
The error took place when the answer scripts went to the second examiner for correction. The first examiner had already checked the 50 marks unit and submitted the marks to the university. But since both the units were written in one answer script, the second examiner after checking unit two submitted both the marks together instead of submitting marks for the part he had checked. Due to this, the total marks for some crossed 100. When the marks were fed into the computer, the programme dropped a digit.
Though the university wants to take strict action in the case, ground realities tell that it can do precious little. The best that CU can do is to show-cause the erring examiner.
This is because the second unit examiner is not a full-time teacher. “Food and nutrition is a multidisciplinary subject and since we have just started honours in it we do not have adequate teachers. As a result, the university has engaged guest lecturers to teach as well as evaluate the answer scripts,” said a senior university official.
“The teacher was recommended by the Board of Studies for checking the answer scripts. As he is not a full timer, the university will have to remain satisfied by issuing a show-cause letter to him,” he added.
The university, however, on Thursday offered all the 47 students to see their answer scripts, if they wished to do so.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com