BU Withdrawn Book
The textbook that will no longer be used by Bharathiar University. Thousands of copies of the textbook Communication Skills in English, prescribed for second year undergraduate students, will be withdrawn and replaced with those published by Bharathiar University. This follows a directive from Vice-Chancellor G. Thiruvasagam. The book, prepared by the university’s Undergraduate Board of Studies of English and published by a reputed publishing house, was found to have many errors. Following reports in the media and representations by several English faculty members of colleges, the Vice-Chancellor held an inquiry and found that the board as well as the publisher had erred. “I have dissolved the Board of Studies and ordered the publisher to withdraw the books (Rs. 78 each).
An ad-hoc committee consisting of faculty from the university’s Department of English and Foreign Languages has started preparing material based on the same syllabus.The first unit will be available on the university’s website http://www.b-u.ac.in/ in the first week of August,” the Vice-Chancellor told The Hindu on Wednesday. Once the committee prepared the whole material, it would be given to the same publisher only for printing. And, the university would not pay for it. “Once the books are available in the market in August, the students can exchange the old book for the new one”.
An upset Vice-Chancellor said he was driven to taken such a drastic measure as replacing a book of a publisher because it was for a subject that was part of the regular curriculum. This was the first time the university was introducing communicative skills as a regular subject in the third semester for second year students. “The book is a result of poor efforts put in by the members of the Board as well as the publisher. It is very sad that students have been inconvenienced. The new book will be a much better one with more practical components,” said Mr. Thiruvasagam.
