Letter to the University of Mumbai by students of T.Y.BMS

15^th February 2014

To

The Hon’ble Vice Chancellor

University of Mumbai

Mumbai-32

Respected Sir,

We, the students of BMS sem V of the University of Mumbai wish to bring to your notice the severe discrepancies in the marks allotted to students in the subject of Financial Management. We received our mark list on 7^th February. We were shocked to notice the severe discrepancies in the marks allotted to us. Several students who have been continuously scoring good marks, even securing 70% and above in sem IV have  got very low marks in the subject of financial management in sem V. We would like to point that there were several issues with the question paper of the subject financial management in sem V. There were the following problems:

• Questions in Financial Management (F.M) was really tricky and though students prepared well for the exam, during writing the paper, there was total confusion of solving the sums.
• Concept questions like ABC Analysis ( which was expected in logistics paper ) was seen in F.M paper.
• Sums carrying 5 marks were very lengthy ( took around 20-25 minutes to solve ) and 15 marks sum on capital budgeting was like solving 2 sums. Questions to ask for 10 marks were asked for 5 marks, 15 marks questions were for 10 marks.
• F.M paper was for BMS i.e management students and not for BAF/BFM students who aspire to be CA/ pursue job in accounts field. Level of sums was MBA/CA level and not to our degree level.
• This year’s FM Paper was the toughest in the history of BMS ( Refer University Question Papers from November 2001 to 2012 ). Students inspite of practicing all 12 years university question papers couldn’t solve the paper as there was twisted sums and sudden change in Mumbai University’s trend.

These problems have been pointed out by students to the administration immediately after the examination. In addition, there was a lot of confusion in the model solutions to this paper, as had been pointed out by the newspapers. (Copy attached). All this has unjustly affected the careers of many students. A majority of the students have actually scored marks in single digits, which is highly unusual given their academic careers so far. We are attaching some representative marksheets of sem IV of  the affected students along with the marks scored by them in sem V showing the discrepancy of marks in sem V. Under the rules of the University, such students are ineligible to even apply for revaluation. However, given the confusion over the question paper, model solutions and inconsistent assessment, these students are being punished for what is not their fault in the first place. 

In addition, we would like to point out that ordinance 0.5045-A (Condonation) contemplates that 1% of the aggregate marks of the examination or 10% of the total marks of the course in which a student is failing , whichever is less, can be given as grace marks provided the student is failing in only one subject. This implies that students who have got 17 marks should be passed by giving them 7 marks ( 1% of the total marks, i.e. 700) if they are failing in only one subject. However, in some cases this has not been done.

Students have also suffered because of the application of the “scaling down” rule. Scaling down the marks scored by students in the internal examination is unjust and unfair. We have scored marks in the internal examination through hard work and sincerity. It is unfair of the University to reduce the marks scored by us in the internal examination.

Some of the students are also in a paradoxical situation where they have scored more marks than others but have actually received lower grades. This anomaly needs to be looked at.

We request you to please use your good offices to have the papers in the subject Financial Management of semester V re-assessed because of the several anomalies which are evidently wide-spread, affecting  the future of a very large number of students. We also request you to apply the ordinance 0.5045-A in the case of students who have scored 17 marks in FM but passed in all the other subjects. Please also kindly intervene to help students who have suffered because of the unjust policy of scaling down of the internal marks. Finally, we request you to kindly rectify the anomalies in awarding grades that we have pointed out.

  Yours sincerely

Students of SEM V Bachelor of Management Studies

Cc to: Controller of Examinations

University of Mumbai.