The Hindu

Mangalore, Jul 13: Mangalore University has appointed a guest teacher each at two government degree colleges in Dakshina Kannada as co-ordinators for the ongoing tabulation of marks of B.A. and B.Sc. examinations.

Teacher organisations have criticised the university’s move pointing out that guest lecturers could not be held responsible for any malpractices during tabulation. Their fear comes in the wake of recent scam related to LL.B. examinations of November, 2008, in which students who had not appeared for the examinations had been declared as passed. The university itself had admitted that manipulations had been found during tabulation process.

A guest teacher is not a permanent employee of any college and the appointment of such a teacher as co-ordinator apparently violates the university’s instructions. The university had instructed earlier to the colleges not to depute guest teachers as tabulators.

It had made it clear that tabulators should be regular teachers with a minimum of two-year experience.

Yet, the university appointed a guest teacher as co-ordinator although there were many senior, experienced, and regular teachers, willing to take up the responsibility.

Enquiries revealed that William Norbert Goveas was a teacher at government colleges in Haleyangady and Vamadapadavu last year. Now, the Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT), and the Mangalore Zone of the Karnataka Government College Teachers’ Association (KGCTA) have taken the issue to Vice-Chancellor K.M. Kaveriyappa. K.V. Purushothama, general secretary, AMUCT, and K. Subrahmanya Bhat, president, Mangalore Zone of KGCTA, told The Hindu that they met the Vice-Chancellor recently and registered their protest against the new practice of the university.

Prof. Purushothama said that the university had been appointing Mr. Goveas as the co-ordinator for tabulation for since 2002.