From the next academic year, there will be eight new degrees colleges — four in Dakshina Kannada and two each in Udupi and Kodagu districts — if the conditions imposed by Mangalore University are met before June this year. The Academic Council of the university approved the opening of these colleges in its meeting on Wednesday. The list includes an evening college.
All the eight colleges have proposed to offer Bachelor of Commerce course; one of them will offer Bachelor of Arts course, too.
The colleges approved are: Yenepoya College, Mangalore (B.Com., B.Sc. in interior design and decoration); Canara Evening College, Kodialbail, Mangalore (B.Com.); St. Sebastian College of Commerce, Ullal (B.Com.); Mar Ivanios College, Puttur (B.A., B.Com.); ECR Institute of Management Studies, Kota (B.Com., B.B.M., B.C.A.); Shirdi Sai Degree College, Karkala (B.Com. and B.Sc. in interior design and decoration); First Grade College, Murnadu, Madikeri (B.Com.); Green Mountain College, Madikeri (B.Com.).
A local inquiry committee of the university had recommended against giving affiliation to Shirdi Sai Degree College citing lack of infrastructure. However, Vice-Chancellor T.C. Shivashankara Murthy said that the college could be given an opportunity to develop them till June before the commencement of the classes for 2014-15. The same committee could visit the college in May to ensure whether the college had built infrastructure and met other conditions such as opening library and appointing a librarian. If it fulfilled the conditions, it could be allowed to open the college, which the council agreed.
The council resolved that other seven colleges, too, should fulfil the conditions, such as appointment of qualified teachers, laid out by the respective local inquiry committees, which had recommended their opening subject to fulfilling the conditions, before June.
Mr. Murthy told the council that the government approved the regulations governing the certificate course in visual arts. Interested colleges could offer the course for 2014-15.