Gulbarga varsity cancels outreach programmes

The Gulbarga University has cancelled its outreach programmes even before their launch. The University was in the dock for entering into an agreement with a private institutions in conducting the outreach programmes.

Former Governor and Rajya Sabha Member M Rama Jois had complained to Governor H R Bhardwaj, alleging financial irregularities in the distance education programme of the university.

In his letter to Bhardwaj, Jois had stated that the university ran the outreach programmes without obtaining approval by the Governor, who is also the Chancellor.

The Governor summoned Vice Chancellor E T Puttaiah, seeking an explanation.

However, the University decided to cancel the outreach programmes even before the vice chancellor met the Governor.

S L Hiremath, registrar of the University, said Bangalore-based company YGen Management Consulting Private Limited, with which it signed the MoU,  has been directed to suspend the outreach programmes.

The university had entered in to MoU with the Y Gen and the Mumbai-based company Sritve India Education Foundation as its exclusive co-ordinating partners, which, in turn, would identify the authorised partner institutions across the country to run the management courses of the Gulbarga university.

The University has recognised only 49 of the 70 partnership institutions the YGen had identified to run MBA, Executive MBA, BBA, and PGDBM courses, Hiremath said.

On the violation of rules, Hiremath said: “Since there are too many universities offering such courses in and outside the State, the university thought it wise to accord provisional recognition to the potential institutions so that the university can keep them reserved to offer our programmes once our statutes are approved.’’

The university, however, later claimed ignorance on financial irregularities and blamed the coordinating partners and partnership institutions for the alleged scam.

They have collected the fee, admitted the students, and conducted the classes. In Gulbarga city, under the very nose of the university, the Central Institute of Business Management and Technology, an authorised outreach partnership institution, has admitted 23 students by collecting hefty fee.

Students became aware of dubious ways of conducting the courses, when there was no sign of conducting the examination for the first semester.

The institutions blamed the university for not obtaining approval of the statues by the government.  

Hiremath claimed that the university came to know about the financial irregularities of these institutions only after the affected students complained to the varsity.

“Sine the permission and recognition was provisional they should not have admitted the students. Moreover, we have not finalised syllabus, did not fix the eligibility criteria, fee structure, etc; so, they cannot admit students’’ Hiremath said.

He regretted the ‘minor lapse’ of giving provisional recognition without the approval of the statutes and the inconvenience caused to the students.