BU may scrap PG courses not in demand

Students who have sought admissions to post-graduate courses of the Bangalore University which have very less demand might have to switch over to other courses, if the university fails to make minimum admissions for these subjects.

One course that faces an immediate risk of being taken off the list is Sericulture. According to BU Vice-Chancellor Prof B Thimme Gowda, the course is likely to be scrapped if they fail to make at least ten admissions for the subject this year.

In the ongoing PG admissions that started on August 8, there were only four takers for Sericulture out of the 22 seats on offer. According to Prof Gowda, there were few takers for the course on Saturday also. The university had opened admissions for science courses on August 8 and 9.

Another such course is Psychological Counselling. Only four seats have been taken out of the 57 available.

A look at the number of admissions also shows that the demand has gone down for microbiology, biotechnology and biochemistry. “At one point there was so much of demand for these courses. However, there has been a gradual decline and this year too not many admissions have been made,” the Vice-Chancellor said.

As many as 116 admissions have been made for biotechnology (out of 506 seats), 108 for biochemistry (out of 258 seats) and 132 admissions for microbiology (out of 278 seats). These include seats in affiliated colleges along with seats on offer in the varsity departments.

Prof Thimme Gowda told Deccan Herald that there is a lot of demand for mass communication. “In fact, we had to increase the intake to accommodate students,” he said.

Another course for which there is huge rush is Physics. “There was a lot of demand even in affiliated colleges.”

Likewise, nearly all seats were filled in Chemistry and Computer Science. As for Mathematics, the university has filled all seats in its department but some seats are remaining in affiliated colleges.

In total, when the admissions opened, there were 3,107 seats for science courses, out of which 1,401 were filled on Friday and another 600 seats on Saturday. The exact number would be tabulated by Monday, the vice chancellor said.

The university will conduct a second round of counselling for the remaining seats. The date for this will be decided on August 11, he added. BU will issue a notification about the remaining seats after which students can apply, he said.