MU to pay teaching, non-teaching staff for holding online exams

Mumbai University (MU) will be paying the staff, both teaching and non-teaching, of its affiliated colleges for their work in online exams.

“Many requests from principals and teachers of various departments and affiliated colleges were received regarding remuneration to be paid to teaching and non-teaching staff engaged in online examination work. Accordingly, an item was placed before members of Board of Examination and Evaluation (BoEE) where it was resolved that remuneration will be paid,” said a circular signed by the BoEE director, Vinod Patil, last week. It further states that the remuneration format will be restored once examinations are again held in offline mode.

While teachers have always been paid by the university for setting final-year question papers as well as for assessment, the same was dropped in summer 2020 examinations session as it was conducted in the online mode. The lockdown implemented due to rising Covid-19 cases forced the MU and all affiliated colleges to conduct online exams and in multiple choice questions (MCQs) format. Colleges soon opted for softwares where once the question papers in MCQ format was uploaded, assessment was completed through the software based on an answer key uploaded by the teachers.

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“While there has been no physical assessment work by teachers, their work has increased in terms of examination duty. Setting question papers in MCQ format itself is a task, and teachers have to submit answer keys along with the question paper. They also have to be available for students online during the exam to clear doubts if at all. It’s only fair that teachers are remunerated for their work,” said the principal of a suburban college.

As per the circular, paper setters will be paid ₹7 per MCQ question and ₹2 for every response in the answer key, proof readers of the question paper will be paid ₹100 per paper and ₹150 will be paid for uploading each and every question paper.

The exam committee will be paid ₹10 per student for the entire examination programme while the chief and joint chief exam conductor will be paid ₹400 and ₹250 respectively per day. The IT exam coordinator will receive ₹200 per day and every staff on the helpdesk will be paid ₹100 per day. Lead college principals will receive ₹12,000 as honorarium amount per annum.