Mumbai: NMIMS in a spot again as students fail to clear exams

Earlier, the UGC barred NMIMS from offering open and distance learning and online programmes. File pic

As many as 120 parents of students enrolled at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) have complained to the chief minister and governor of Maharashtra about the school's new assessment policy. The strict assessment policy of NMIMS's Anil Surendra Modi School of Commerce requires students to repeat a year if they fail in an exam, instead of being allowed to keep terms and reappear for the subject in the following academic year. This has become a cause of concern for nearly 45 per cent of students who face uncertain futures.

The students and parents have alleged that out of 140 students enrolled in the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) courses at the Mumbai campus, 65 have failed. At the Hyderabad campus, six out of 18 students failed in the second year of BCom exams, while nearly 100 students out of 160 in first-year BCom and 34 out of 60 in second-year BCom, failed at the Navi Mumbai campus.

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The parents and students had also protested outside the NMIMS Mumbai campus on May 2, following which they met the vice-chancellor of the deemed-to-be university. However, they alleged that the meeting did not have a satisfactory outcome, following which they complained to the University Grants Commission (UGC) about the issue. "We met the vice-chancellor, pro-vice chancellor and other university officials who were present, but after a two-hour-long meeting, we found ourselves right where were… there was no moving ahead. Instead of addressing the problem, we were asked to prove the flaws in the new assessment system," said an aggrieved student.

One of the parents told mid-day that the students of NMIMS which has multiple campuses in various cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Indore, and Chandigarh, have expressed a great deal of unhappiness with the institute. "Recently, the undergraduate batches had their semester exams and the results came as a complete shocker. This year, the university modified the evaluation system to an inter-campus evaluation system where papers from all NMIMS campuses were jumbled up and sent to other campuses for an online, computer-based examination," said the parent.

Alleging that the teachers are inexperienced, the parent said no standard evaluation practices were established for the faculty to preserve consistency and uniformity in assessments throughout all NMIMS campuses. "Although students wrote their external exams as instructed on campus and achieved high internal grades too, they did not receive marks according to their performance. Few courses were taught at a level below what the course required, but other campuses had the necessary resources for instruction. This was a result of having inexperienced faculty at this campus, which the management is quite aware of. These factors led to large numbers of students failing the semester examinations." he said.

This is not the first time NMIMS is in the recent news for the wrong reasons. In April, the UGC had uploaded a public notice on its website barring the institute from offering distance learning and online programmes citing a violation of norms. The commission barred the institute from offering open and distance learning (ODL) and online programmes for the January-February 2023, July-August 2023, and January-February 2024 academic sessions.

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According to the notice dated April 17, the institute had not abided by the fee refund policy established by the UGC, and there were numerous ongoing complaints regarding the ODL and online courses. The UGC, through its public notice, also cautioned potential students against seeking admission into any course offered by the institute. However, over 20,000 students ended up securing admissions for various ODL and online programmes on offer.

65/140
No of students who failed at Mumbai campus