State gets 2 more 'community' colleges under UGC scheme

Two more colleges — BMS College for Women, Basavanagudi in Bengaluru, and Maharani’s Science College for Women in Mysuru — have been included in the Community College Scheme by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in the present academic year.

While the Bengaluru college will offer a diploma in Food Processing and Preservation, the institution in Mysuru would teach a diploma in Nursery and Propagation Techniques, both being sanctioned under the scheme.

The BMS College for Women will combine the course with industry partnership so that students can get immediate placements, said Dr N Nanda, principal of the college.
The course will be started shortly, she added.

A total of 200 colleges, including 14 in Karnataka, were selected under the Community College Scheme which was launched in 2013-14. The scheme aimed at “integrating skills in higher education”.

In the subsequent year, no new college from Karnataka was included in the scheme, though extensions were given to seven of the 14 colleges for courses they were already offering.

New courses

Besides the addition of two colleges, three existing institutions under the scheme have been given permission to start new courses.

RC College of Commerce and Management, Race Co-urse Road, Bengaluru, will offer a one-year course in Financial Services, with Insurance as the main component, in the academic year 2015-16.

It will continue to teach courses in Financial Planning and Accounting and Taxation.
Highlighting the advantages of these new courses, B V Sudha, faculty member and course co-ordinator under the Community College Scheme at RC College of Commerce and Management, said that 35 students had enrolled in the two existing courses and many of them had already been placed.

St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Mangaluru, has been permitted to offer a diploma in Retail Management this year, besides the courses in Computer Animation and Multimedia and Travel and Tourism, which were approved in 2013.

Teresian College, Mysuru, which has been teaching a certificate course in Computer Applications and a diploma in Health Care since 2013, will teach another diploma, in Accounting and Taxation, this year.