A section of the academic community has accused the Higher Education Department and universities of rushing through with the introduction of new-generation courses in affiliated colleges. There are apprehensions about job prospects as well.
They claim that the department on September 9 asked the universities in the State to call for applications from accredited aided and government colleges and unaccredited aided colleges started by Scheduled Tribes Trusts for starting new undergraduate and post-graduate courses as suggested by the Sabu Thomas commission.
Notification
The University of Calicut issued a notification dated September 22 on its website on September 16. The last date for filing applications was September 23. The university released a list of recommended courses on September 25.
Kannur University issued a similar notification on September 18 and the last date for submitting applications was September 21, which was later extended to September 23. Details about the list of recommended courses in the university were not known. There was reportedly a similar rush in the case of the University of Kerala and Mahatma Gandhi University as well. In some instances, the colleges were not allotted courses of their choice.
Syllabus
“Normally, the syllabus for a course is prepared by the Board of Studies of the university, taking enough time. Autonomous colleges have their own system for the purpose. But how is it possible to do it in such a short time and what is the need for the hurry?” an assistant professor in a prominent aided college in Kozhikode asked.
There was an issue of duplication of courses too. There is plan to introduce M.Sc. Biology. However, subjects such as computational biology and drug designing are already part of postgraduate courses in biotechnology and molecular biology. The existing M.Sc. course in botany has been completely removed from the list of new courses. Teachers said that those who graduated in courses such as molecular biology and biotechnology were already finding it difficult to get jobs and how the renaming would help was not clear.
Old courses remain
Sources in the board of studies for undergraduate courses in the University of Calicut, however, pointed out that new courses were being introduced without altering the existing ones. The concerns raised about M.Sc. (Botany) would be addressed soon, they added.
