'Do not offer medical courses'

The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), Bengaluru, has asked the conventional universities in the state to restrain from offering medical and health science-related courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Raising objection, the RGUHS asked the vice-chancellors of conventional universities not to offer such courses.

As per the information available from RGUHS, Bangalore University, Mangalore University and the University of Mysore are offering courses in audio and speech pathology at the undergraduate and postgraduate level under the science faculty. Though these courses have been taught for several years now, RGUHS is asking the universities to discontinue the courses.

"There are certain courses supposed to be run by a medical university as per legislation and no other conventional university is allowed to run such courses. But the Bangalore, Mangalore and Mysore universities are offering some courses related to medical sciences. We are writing to the authorities at the aforementioned universities to discontinue the courses," RGUHS vice-chancellor Dr Sachidanand told DH.

According to RGUHS officials, from the next academic year, the university will introduce a few courses including audio and speech pathology. This is one of the reasons for restricting conventional universities.

"Let those universities award degrees to the existing batches. But from the next academic year, they shall not admit students or renew affiliation," said Dr Sachidanand.

However, Dr Sachidanand clarified that the students who already have degrees from conventional universities will not be affected. "We are not asking them to withdraw degrees awarded all these years, but asking not to do new admissions," he added.

BU officials objected: "When we have supporting science subjects and faculty and the UGC encouraging interdisciplinary courses, what's the harm? We are yet to receive communication from RGUHS and we will convey our opinion to once we receive it."

BU will start a postgraduate course in forensic science in the current academic year. RGUHS will check the nomenclature of the course.