JU's probe panel yet to identify disparities in re-evaluation of answer sheets
Kolkata: The two-member enquiry committee constituted by Jadavpur University in August last year to probe procedural or other lapses in the evaluation of answer scripts of all the six Humanities subjects in which the varsity had conducted admission tests have not yet been able to ascertain the reason behind the disparity in marks during successive evaluation. The committee is scheduled to submit its enquiry report by this month. A retired Justice of Calcutta High Court and an external academician constitute the committee.
"The committee has held a number of hearings with different sections of people including academicians, teachers and students. The committee had earlier planned to submit the report by December but the process was delayed due to holidays during the Puja vacation and a number of persons who needed to be present in the hearing were not available. We have been informed that it would be submitted by this month but they have been unable to find out the reason behind the disparity of marks in the two evaluations," a senior official of JU said. The committee is also likely to come up with suggestions on what should be the admission procedure. "I cannot divulge anything about the findings at this juncture," said Ashutosh Ghosh, former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University who is one of the members of the probe panel.
It may be mentioned that there were allegations of improper evaluation of answer scripts of History and the varsity had to conduct re-evaluation with external academicians. It was found that there was a significant variation of marks secured by the candidates in the first and second evaluation. The first evaluation was conducted by professors of the History department while the second one was done by external experts.
There were as many as 15 changes in the revised selection list for History. A total number of 15 candidates who were on the waiting list after the earlier evaluation, made it to the selection list after re-evaluation. There were cases where a student, who had scored 6 out of 100, got 32 after re-evaluation. A total of 344 scripts were re-evaluated. The merit list for admission was prepared on the basis of 50 percent marks in the board examination and 50 percent scored in the admission test.
Apart from History, admission tests were held in English, Bengali, International Relations, Philosophy and Comparative Literature. Though there were minor lapses in the evaluation of scripts in the other subjects, the university's ambit of probe involved all the six subjects for the sake of transparency.
Bhaskar Sarkar, convener of the West Bengal College and University Professors Association (WBCUPA) said: "We have urged the university that the rules for admission should be same for all subjects — either it will be on the basis of marks in the board examinations or on the basis of marks in admission tests."
