The Inter-University Board’s (IUB) decision to hold State-level common admission test (CAT) for admissions to universities in the State has come in lot of criticism from educationists, students organisations and others. And this opposition has come more from the people in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region as they feel that this new policy would prove detrimental to the interests of the student community here.
This concern was expressed at a media conference held here on Thursday, jointly addressed by noted advocate and educationist Raghuvendra Nadagouda, Dalit leader Basanna Singhe, Subhash Rathod, Bheemrao Tegalthippi, Pradeep Telkar, Naseer Hussain and others.
Mr Nadagouda said, the IUB had decided to hold admissions to 11 post-graduate courses in the universities by conducting a State-level CAT.
And towards this, 90 per cent of the seats from all the universities available in these 11 courses would be pooled together, and admissions would be held through centralised counselling. "The remaining 10 per cent seats would be allotted to students from outside the State," he added.
The post-graduate courses which have been brought under the ambit of the CAT are, Bio-technology, Bio-Chemistry, Chemistry, Physics, Micro-Biology, History, Economics, Political Science, Master of Social Work (MSW), Education and Commerce.
However, Mr Nadagouda stated that this new system would prove detrimental to the interests of the students in the backward Hyderabad-Karnataka region. He pointed out that the conventional universities were established in different regions of the State specifically to cater to the educational needs of that particular region. Under this presumption, the Gulbarga University was started in 1980, so that the students from this region were not denied higher education.
But, with the decision to have centralised admissions through the CAT now, students from this backward region would not be able to get admissions in the universities, as they would not be able to compete with students from other regions of the State. Moreover, before bringing in such a drastic change in the admission procedure, the IUB had not though it fit to consult educationists, or the people.
Thereby, he demanded the IUB to withdraw this decision to have admissions through CAT, and conduct admissions in according to the earlier procedure.
Nevertheless, he also criticised the government for not filling up vacant posts in the universities. Referring to Gulbarga university, he said, in all there were 86 teaching vacancies, and 210 non-teaching vacancies. Such had been the state that instead of the required eight teaching staff in the English Department, it was being run only by a single part-time lecturer. Of the 26 teaching posts in Chemistry Department, there were only six teachers at present, he added.
Instead of filling up these teaching posts, he criticised the government for sanctioning 104 new degree colleges, wherein 2,367 more teachers were needed. "There is no proper infrastructure in the existing colleges itself, and we do not understand how are they going to start new colleges," he added.
Referring to admissions to professional courses, he said, the government had bent to the pressure tactics of the private professional college managements, and had conceded 60 per cent of the seats to them.