Thiruvananthapuram: The 71 third-semester MBA students of Kerala University will have to take a re-test of the 'project finance' paper on April 7. The answer sheets of the 'project finance' test that was originally held on May 5 last year had gone missing. 

The decision was taken at the Syndicate meeting and was announced by Kerala University Vice Chancellor Dr Mohan Kunnummal in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. "Once the re-test is done, the results of the entire MBA batch, involving 1000-odd students, will be published in four days, by around April 11", the VC said. The VC said that those students who would not be able to take the test on April 7 would get another chance on April 22.

Student representatives had met higher education minister R Bindu on March 30 and had expressed their concerns about the re-test. The students said it would be unfair to ask them to retake a test they had written at least a year ago, and for a serious administrative lapse.  

The VC conceded that there were serious lapses. The answer sheets were given for valuation very late, in November, seven months after the exam was conducted. All the teachers had returned the answer sheets except one. The teacher from whom the answer sheets were lost had informed the University of the missing papers only on January 14. And even after this, the University had kept silent about it. It is two-and-a-half months after the papers went missing that the re-test has now been ordered. "Clearly, there were mistakes on the part of the University, too," the VC said.

Dr Kunnummal attributed the delay, and even the loss of answer sheets, to an unfair practice the University was forced to adopt.

"MBA courses are taught only in self-financing colleges and so the answer sheets are valued by teachers in self-financing colleges," he said. Problem is, these teachers are not paid UGC salary. "They are paid just 15,000 or Rs 20,000 or Rs 25,000," the VC said.

The UGC guideline is that teachers should do the paper valuation without taking any additional money. "What the University did was to apply this rule to poorly-paid teachers in self-financing colleges, too," the VC said. This was done because there was an audit observation saying that the rule should apply uniformly to all teachers, irrespective of whether they received UGC salary or not. The courts, too, had said so. 

Thanks to such a prescription, many of the self-financing teachers keep away from valuation. "This has created a crisis for the University. And such a problem exists not just in MBA courses but also in LLB courses and in the only engineering college run by the University," the VC said, and added: "If the crisis has to be solved, these teachers should be given what they deserve."

The VC said the University had decided to pay them valuation fees. "They are not UGC teachers and, therefore, UGC rules do not apply to them," the VC said. The University will also appeal against the court orders that had extended UGC norms to teachers in self-financing colleges. The Comptroller and Auditor general will also be given a clarification on the issue. 

The VC said that not only were the self-financing teachers denied valuation fees but their parent colleges also refuse to pay them salaries during the days they make themselves available at valuation camps. "So instead of doing the valuation at the camps, they take the papers back to their homes. And this was how one of the teachers lost the 71 answer sheets," he said. Nonetheless, the VC said action would be taken against the teacher who had lost the answer sheets.

It is said that some of the students who have been asked to do the re-test had already gone abroad and some had found a job even. Such students can take the test on April 22. The lost papers belonged to 65 regular students and six supplementary students from five different colleges. 

The VC said it was improper to impart marks without conducting a test. "It will not do the students any good. Some questions could be raised in future," he said. He ruled out taking the average of earlier tests saying it would adversely affect students who had not done well in the earlier exams but had worked hard later on.