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AU may reduce students? intake
THE ALLAHABAD University (AU) could well decided to reduce the intake of students at both the under graduate and the postgraduate levels from the forthcoming academic year. Indications to this regard emerged at the admission committee meeting which discussed various issues threadbare on Sunday. All deans as well as heads of departments attended the meeting that was chaired by vice-chancellor Prof Rajen Harshe.
THE ALLAHABAD University (AU) could well decided to reduce the intake of students at both the under graduate and the postgraduate levels from the forthcoming academic year. Indications to this regard emerged at the admission committee meeting which discussed various issues threadbare on Sunday.
All deans as well as heads of departments attended the meeting that was chaired by vice-chancellor Prof Rajen Harshe.
The meeting was considered significant as the resolutions adopted were expected to be incorporated in the admission related ordinances to be framed within the next few months. However, experts claimed, as the University of Allahabad Act-2005 makes no mention of the admission committee, its recommendations/resolutions will have to be endorsed by the varsity’s academic council before being incorporated in the ordinances concerned.
It is to be noted that during the past few years as a State varsity, AU had to enroll more and more students in accordance to the State government’s wishes despite lack of adequate resources. The university each year ended up admitting hundreds of more students than its sanctioned capacity at the cost of the education quality.
Sources said that during the admission committee meeting, most top officials were in favour of doing away with the concept of additional classes and reducing the number of admissions for both the UG and the PG courses.
The additional classes were initially started on the orders of the State government and later stopped on its very instruction. However, the varsity kept running these classes as well.
Most in the meeting reportedly also expressed their desire to adhere to the teacher-taught ratio as specified by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and concentrate on PG teaching and research activities.
On the controversial subject of OBC reservations, most teachers were unanimous that as no such relaxation could be provided as there were no provisions for it under the Central University system.
On the issue of lowering the admission form fee, the top officials maintained that as the fee being charged by AU was not more than other Central Universities, no such decrease should be implemented.
The officials also discussed the policy of direct admissions to the wards of the varsity employees and agreed upon that though they would be given preference under the new set up too, employees’ wards would have to take admission tests like other students.
Following the admission committee meeting and the resolutions, all eyes are now on the university’s academic council whose decision could well spell out the road that the 119-year-old varsity will take in its new avatar of Central University.
