Bangalore University (BU), one of the biggest varsities in the country, has more than 40 departments, but only five could manage to mobilise research funds from sponsoring agencies.

Except for the departments of Sanskrit, foreign languages and Commerce, no other department published even a single research article in international journals during the academic year 2006-07.

Dropouts are not restricted to schools. At BU, five PG departments, Geography, Mathematics, Botany, Statistics, Applied Genetics recorded high dropout rates.

These are some of the revelations by the Triple A (Academic, Administration and Audit) Committee constituted by BU, on evaluation and implementation of academic norms during 2006-07. While BU did release the recommendations made by this Committee to the media last week, it did not give the full report. In its report, a copy of which is available with the Deccan Herald, the five-member Committee headed by former vice-chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University Health Sciences (RGUHS) S Chandrashekar Shetty has done a department-wise analysis before making the recommendations.

No research project

The Committee found that Sanskrit, Urdu, foreign languages and Physical Education had no research projects at all. Except for the departments of History, Performing Arts, Commerce and Education, no other department could organise even a national seminar during 2006-07. The department of Sanskrit has six students in four semesters and a faculty of five, while on the other hand, the department of Electronic Science has a faculty of three members and a student strength of 62. The report reveals that in the department of Computer Applications, the research publication index is 0.1 per year per faculty.

That was on the flip side. On the brighter side, the Committee has listed several innovative measures taken up by the University. Department of Chemistry, for instance, made original discoveries for which patent applications have been filed and patents acquired. There has been good placement records and campus recruitment have been held for students in departments of MBA, MCA, Statistics, Geography, Psychology and Commerce. For the first time, students of every PG department evaluated the performance of their teachers and also infrastructure and course content. When contacted, BU Vice-Chancellor H A Ranganath said, the main intention behind constituting the Committee was to do a reality check on the affairs of the University and implement remedial measures. “The reports reflects the scenario in the University during the last three decades. Things cannot improve overnight. But, we will take sincere measures to improve the scenario,” he said.

“The Committee has given department-specific suggestions for improvement and also long term and short term recommendations for implementation. We will take up all of them on a priority basis,” Prof Ranganath added.
And finally, the five departments which did manage to mobilise research funds from sponsoring agencies are Sociology, History, Economics, Performing Arts and Commerce.