PAU’s journalism dept struggles to prevent empty classrooms
Having produced the editors of various dailies for the local and national press, the Punjab Agricultural University’s (PAU) Department of Journalism, is finding it hard to attract any students for the last few years.
Having produced the editors of various dailies for the local and national press, the Punjab Agricultural University’s (PAU) Department of Journalism, is finding it hard to attract any students for the last few years.
The only course at the department, master’s in journalism and mass communication course, last year had only one pass out. The admissions are going on at present, and so far, only one student has taken admission. Head of department, Sarabjeet Singh, believes that a student or two may take admissions in the next round of counseling though.
“The alumni from this department today are on the top of many dailies, but it is tragedy that since the late noughties the admissions in the department took a dip and today there is just one or two students in the department,” said Sarabjeet.
He believes that there were two reasons for the department losing students: lack of interest in social sciences and migration.
“Students seem to have lost interest in social sciences. It’s not journalism but even the languages and sociology department face these issues,” he said.
“Students also prefer now to go abroad after finishing school over staying here and continuing with higher education.”
The varsity, he said, keeps advertising to attract more students to the course but to no avail.
While there were Journalism courses running at the other universities in the state, the course at the PAU’s Journalism department was different from the rest as it focused on agricultural journalism.
Vice chancellor, Satbir Singh Gosal, said, “the idea behind the course was to nurture journalists who could work on agriculture with subject-related knowledge.”
“This was our specialty. However, in the last few years, social sciences and languages have lost their charm among the students. They prefer science and skill courses.”