Was data from additional sheets missed?

A principal from a college in western suburbs said,“Due to the protest from students,university had to allow supplements halfway through the exam. In the absence of the additional supplements,students were asked to use a second 40-page main answersheet. Many teachers and examiners feel that due to the newly implemented bar code system and optical mark recognition (OMR) system for data feeding into computers,it’s very inconvenient to feed marks from the supplementary sheets. The system is not equipped to scan the huge answer booklets and it is likely that marks of some of the sections were left out and were not added to the grand total.” Dr Rajendra Chaudhary from Rizvi College and vice-president of Forum for Fairness in Education said.

“I blame the entire university administration,especially the examination department,for implementing the bar code and OMR system in a hurry. In a bid to show that the department is progressing,they may end up ruining many careers. Students had approached us and we will make sure they do not suffer.”

Professor Vilas Shinde,the controller of examinations at Mumbai University,said,errors have not been caused due to the new system but due to the person operating it. “The system is well in place and there is no problem at all. It is likely that the error may have occurred as the technical staff may have not added marks of several sections to the grand total. We have received a representation from students already and are now verifying the data. If any error is found,we will rectify that immediately.”