BU Full filling A.P.J.Kalam's opinion
All undergraduate and postgraduate students of Bharathiar University will have to compulsorily study a diploma course from this academic year, Vice-Chancellor G. Thiruvasagam told a press conference here on Wednesday.In order to facilitate this, 23 new courses would be added to the existing 17 diploma courses for undergraduate studies and 22 new ones would be added to the existing 17 diploma courses for postgraduate studies.He said this had been done in consultation with all the types of colleges. And in order to help these institutions, even the affiliation fees for these courses would be halved. "We were inspired by what the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, said regarding the necessity for introduction of diploma courses in universities."These courses would be taught by "regular teachers" and "we are going to train all the teachers to equip themselves to handles such courses".Besides, in order to avoid overburdening the faculty, these teachers would be permitted to take one hour less per major per week.While the students would have to pay a total of Rs. 300 for a diploma course at the undergraduate level, it would be Rs. 500 for PG students.The university had also decided to introduce non-semester pattern for all B.Ed courses and there would be no internal evaluation for their theory papers.
Dr. Thiruvasagam said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had so far been extending assistance to the university for research."We made an appeal to the organisation to help the colleges. Now it has invited research proposals from the colleges and many have already responded."During June an "open session" would be organised by the DRDO in co-ordination with the university wherein the colleges could present their proposals. Both arts and science colleges were eligible for the grant if their research proposals were to be accepted.
In order to improve communication skills, which could prove helpful in the job market, the university had decided to make language studies compulsory for four semesters for all students.
"This will help students studying courses such as B.Com who study language only in the first two semesters."He was confident that even "non-English teachers" would be able to take such classes.Similarly, in the case of students of humanities such as history, economics, geography and political science, a computer-oriented course would be introduced in the fifth semester.
"All the colleges have computers and hence infrastructure is not a problem. And the main objective is to expose them to some software."As new courses were being introduced only now, which was far behind the normal schedule of granting approval for courses, it had been decided to extend the date for applications from colleges for such courses to May 15.
