All Universities in the State will be reserving one seat in all the postgraduate courses offered on the main campus and the postgraduate centres in different parts of the State for transgenders.
Gulbarga University Vice-Chancellor E.T. Puttaiah told The Hindu that a decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of Vice-Chancellors held in Bangalore under the chairmanship of the Higher Education Minister R.V. Deshpande some days ago. The meeting discussed the need for opening up avenues of higher education to transgenders and Mr. Deshpande said that all the universities should reserve a minimum of one seat.
Prof. Puttaiah said that in another important decision the State Government permitted the Vice-Chancellors to increase the number of self-supporting seats in the courses which have high demand to achieve the twin objective of raising resources and meeting the demand of the students who were ready to pay more to get admission to the courses of their choice. However, increasing the intake will be based on the facilities available in that particular department.
The meet also decided to introduce a uniform calendar of events for all the universities without any specific dates for conducting examinations but to conduct the examinations and other activities within a set period of time.
Another suggestion mooted in the meeting — a common syllabus for all the universities — was not accepted and a majority of the Vice-Chancellors felt that region-based syllabus was the best suited to Karnataka.
Shift system
Another proposal which received wide appreciation was for introducing a shift system in the courses which had a very high demand from the students. However, the Vice-Chancellors expressed difficulties in running a shift system in the universities due to staff shortage. Some felt that the shift system can be considered if the teaching staff agreed to the proposal and in return the teaching staff can be paid extra remuneration.
The meeting also agreed to the proposal that vacant seats in the postgraduate departments can be allotted to students from other universities if there were no takers from the parent university. The meeting expressed its surprise over the high demand for the courses offered in Gulbarga University.
Prof. Puttaiah said for 2,900 seats in courses offered this year by Gulbarga University on its main campus, PG centres and affiliated colleges, there were 8,700 applications.
