Suhas Pednekar, who took over as vice-chancellor of Mumbai University in April 2018, had to hit the ground running. His predecessor Sanjay Deshmukh had to leave after his decision to switch to onscreen assessment led to an unprecedented delay in announcing the results of lakhs of students. Pednekar talks about the backlog, the challenges and way ahead for the 162-year-old institution. Tell us about your first year in office. Advertising I completed one year as the Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University on April 28. When I took over, as many of you are aware, the university was facing some challenges. The main issue was the examination and the declaration of results on time. I would not claim we have overcome the problem entirely but we have to a great extent. The University of Mumbai is the only university in the country now which is using On Screen Marking (OSM) given the vastness of the university — 791 affiliated colleges, nearly 8.5 lakh students spread over seven districts. I’ve come to an understanding that there is a need to focus on three areas — making the process of examination foolproof, promote research of high quality and development, and developing intellectual and physical infrastructure. Advertising We are planning a sports complex on the campus. Another challenge that the university is facing is that there is almost a 50 per cent vacancy in teaching and non-teaching staff. We are not getting enough NOCs to fill up these positions and quality suffers when one has to run an educational institution on a contract basis. When you took over as the Vice-Chancellor, what were some of the realistic goals you set for yourself? The priority was to correct the issues related to examinations. We also realised that not all teachers were participating in the assessment. Some assess less number of answer-sheets and some more than they should, causing the quality to suffer. Since the university did not have a Vice Chancellor for nine months, I am clearing the backlog and it takes time. The requirement now is to strengthen the sub-campuses in Thane and Ratnagiri. We are also planning one at Palghar and one at Sindhudurg. We need to employ directors at the sub-campuses and give them freedom. In just a matter of a few weeks, we will begin giving transcripts online. We are coming up with an interactive app for the whole university so the students will get information at any time from anywhere about every activity of the university. The golden era for MU was up to the late 1980s when it was considered among the best universities in the country. But there has been a steady decline. What went wrong? There is a huge disparity between state universities and central universities. The funding the state universities get is meagre and yet it caters to 90 per cent student population. Thus, so many new courses in emerging areas are being added for the increasing student population but the proportionate infrastructure and desired quality in teaching remain a challenge. Another reason for the decline is the huge gap in what is taught in the class and what is required in the outside world. Moreover, the appointment of teachers has not been possible owing to several reasons. You can’t run an institution by appointment of teachers on a contract basis, who are not paid half the salary other teachers are getting. What measures have been taken to fix the curriculum gap and the fact that we have not been able to get NAAC accreditation? We are almost ready with the NAAC report and are going to submit it soon. When I took over, I realised that last five years’ records were not in place. We needed to generate these records. Activities were being done but somewhere they were not properly documented. The data is to be supported with all the evidence and records of the past five years, which took time but is almost ready now. Talking about curriculum, I do agree there are gaps. When it comes to deciding the curriculum, the benchmark is generally pulled down to have an inclusive approach — the student in the rural area should also be able to cope with studies. The University of Mumbai is a mix of rural, semi-rural, urban and tribes. So anything you decide will be common for all. So one way out is to allow good colleges to use academic freedom. After I took over, nearly 15 colleges have become autonomous. As far as curriculum is concerned, the university has introduced choice-based credit system. The opportunities offered by it are limited and we are trying to improve upon it. Do you feel that the problem is also with the political system with importance given to private institutions? To achieve excellence in education, you cannot do without money. The autonomous institutions are given the liberty to decide their fee structure. The same course is offered in MU for a few thousands whereas some institutions charge lakhs. Hence, they are probably able to give better infrastructure, better quality teaching. The state universities’ purpose is to take care of all, including those from the deprived class, economically or otherwise. With the limited resources available, at times you may not be able to match with private universities. The number of engineering colleges that have come up in Maharashtra or Karnataka is out of proportion. Like professional courses, even basic science is equally important for the growth of the nation. The objective I have outlined for the remaining span of my career as Vice Chancellor is, can we attract professors of eminence who have retired from good universities either within the country or outside? To appoint at least one adjunct professor per department will motivate others and bring relevance to the activities. The second reason why research in our country is not of the standard as those of developed countries is that industry support here is very less. Industry-academia linkages in our country barring few institutions is very less. Currently, Maharashtra is under the process of implementing the reservation system for economically weaker sections in medical institutes, which has met with protests across Maharashtra. What is your view? There is no personal opinion on this. We have to take care of the inclusiveness and whatever Parliament has decided. Our job is to execute that and to ensure that equity is taken care of. When we talk about a reservation, we see there are students who are deprived of their education entirely, their families now probably the first generation. The reason I was told that the UGC is not coming out with filling positions at university level is whether the reservation should be department wise or institution. We are looking forward to this recruitment first before additional requirement. Is there stress among youngsters with regard to jobs? Yes, stress levels are going up in many ways. Not just about clearing exam or a higher percentage. Even after joining a particular course, the student has fear in mind as to ‘am I going to get a particular job? Or the job of my choice?’ Employability is declining. According to a survey, only 20 per cent of engineers are employable. Somewhere, students are not getting personal counseling. In our country, there is still mass education. It is predicted that nearly 50 per cent jobs are going to be online. How does one fix accountability of teachers when there is huge variation in marks given during assessment? The first point is that such a thing won’t happen because the teachers are expected to do quality assessment. But at the same time, teachers are also human beings, they are not machines. Variations may happen because the same papers are assessed by two-three people, there is some per cent variation. It should not be too much. Nobody should asses too many papers per day. There were some teachers assessing so many papers and that is where the quality suffers. We have now put an upper limit of 100 papers per day. MU has not started open defence vivas for PhD students as prescribed by UGC and after a year of UGC guidelines on plagiarism, software has been made available only now? We came out with Vice Chancellor’s Directives (VCD) on guidelines for PhDs, which were missing for many years. Just last week, I told the director of examination and evaluation to send circulars to everyone to ensure that everywhere there will be open defence viva for PhD students. We also started uploading all thesis on Shodhganga portal. No doubt we started late, that I accept, but we have started. Then plagiarism, we have procured the software early on. We are planning to shift the thesis section to the Kalina campus to the new building as there will be separate set-up and slowly probably we will ask students to submit the thesis in the e-format so that even the storage of the thesis takes less space. What kind of development are we going to see in the Kalina campus? Advertising According to an MoU with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), a flyover is passing above MU and a road is crossing the university. In exchange, they are giving us Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)… Whatever money gets collected will be used for the development of the campus and for that development, MMRDA will help. So it is not that MMRDA is going to do everything on its own, they will only execute the ideas and plans. MMRDA has also come out with the e-tender and very soon a proper masterplan will be prepared for the campus.

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