E-Paper
No teachers, no classes, but exams in May
ANYTHING IS possible in Lucknow University. There have been no teachers for two proficiency courses, but the varsity is ready to take students? final exams! Punjabi and Bengali are the courses, which about 40 students would compete and clear proficiently without attending any classes! What? No teacher. No classes. But, final exams in May. That?s LU?s new game plan.
ANYTHING IS possible in Lucknow University. There have been no teachers for two proficiency courses, but the varsity is ready to take students’ final exams!
Punjabi and Bengali are the courses, which about 40 students would compete and clear proficiently without attending any classes! What? No teacher. No classes. But, final exams in May. That’s LU’s new game plan.
In fact, the posts remained vacant throughout the session and the authorities never bothered to clear the dues of last year’s part-time teachers to make the willing to take the classes.
LU administration—that enrolled students on July last—took no interest in appointing part-time teachers for regular classes. Net result: The entire session passed and the officials are unaware about the fate of the course.
About 40 students are enrolled in both these proficiency courses. They purchased admission forms worth Rs 130 and deposited annual fees of about Rs 800 for the course. What more, the varsity administration here itself threw all the UGC norms to the wind. The conditions demand 180 days of teaching and 75 pc attendance of the students is a must before the examinations. But, the norm has been grossly violated and nobody seems interested in sorting out the issue.
Interestingly, IP Parashar, the head of the Hindi department—with which these proficiency subjects are attached—has shot several letters to the Registrar and Pro V-C. But it did not yield any desired results. HT Live has procured a copy of two such letters (dated January 17, 2005 and October 19, 2005) in which Parahsar has urged LU to extend services of teachers of these subjects.
According to her letter dated October 19, 2005, Abhimanyu Das and Kripal Singh had been teaching proficiency subjects like Bengali and Punjabi respectively and requested that there services be maintained. But both the officials did not take cognizance of these letters.
Sadly neither Pro V-C nor controller of examinations nor Arts dean had any clue about the fate of these subjects until this scribe approached them for their version on Tuesday. Says Pro V-C RS Yadav: “I’ve no idea about classes not being held for these subjects. Neither has any student complained about this.
Now that I’ve learnt about the issue I’ll take it up and see what best can be done.”
Controller of examination RBS Verma says: “My job is to conduct the examinations and not to find out how many classes have taken place. The examination dates are out and it will take place as per schedule.” Dean of Arts faculty CP Berthwal also expressed his ignorance and passed the buck to others.
When insisted further, the Pro V-C came out with a rather innovative idea: “If at all students start agitation and complain about classes not being held, a short crash course would be carried out,” he said.
