PG courses scrapped; students, teachers in a fix

Lack of admission under management quota cited as reason

Don Bosco College of Science and Management, Bommanahalli; East West FGC, Vishwaneedam Post, and Dayanand Sagar College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Kumaraswamy Layout terminated various courses immediately after the counselling for centralised admission ended in the first week of October.

Very few students had secured admission in these courses under the BU quota whereas there was not even a single admission under the management quota.

Expressing its inability to run the courses, the Don Bosco College wrote a letter to the students: "We are unable to run the MSc (Biochemistry and Biotechnology) courses for the academic year 2010-11, as no student was admitted under the management quota. Hence, we cannot take students admitted by the Centralised Admission Cell, BU."

A disgruntled Mihirkumar Dhirubhai Boghara who took admission in MSc (Biochem) on October 4 protested thus, "When I reported at the college, it refused admission saying there was no admission under the management quota. We are left in the lurch for no fault of ours. Although the BU has promised to relocate us to another college, nothing has been done even after we submitted the application two weeks ago,” he complained.

Left in the lurch

Domadiya Avadhkishore Kurajibhai, another student, added that the BU Syndicate would take a final decision regarding shifting students to another college only on November 11. “But what are we suppose to do until then? We cannot afford to miss the practical classes," he said.

Shahnawaz Ahmad, who opted for MSc (Biotech) at the same college, too seemed cynical.
"We can't even cancel our admission, as the fee will be refunded only after three months. For the past three weeks we have been running from pillarto post to get our problem addressed,” he said.

The move has also put the future of teachers in jeopardy. "The BU recklessly granted affiliation to colleges for running the courses. However, now the college is making us dance to its tunes. The college runs courses when there are more students but closes them when there are less students. In the wake of recent developments we fear losing our jobs,” a teacher at the Don Bosco College told Deccan Herald.

On October 15, BU's Syndicate had decided to impose a fine of Rs 50,000 per student on colleges, which refused admission within seven days.

A senior BU official, however, said that the University would force the concerned colleges to run the courses.  "They have no business to close down the courses just because there are fewer students. Admission cannot be the sole criterion for running a programme. They willl have to mend their ways. As far as the students are concerned, their future will be protected,” he said.