Stressing on rural connect, Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University K. Byrappa on Sunday asked college teachers to expose students to the hard realities of rural life.
Addressing teachers at the annual convention of Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT) here he said college teachers should take fifth and sixth semester students to the rural areas to understand life.
He said the university had made rural-related project work compulsory for fourth semester post-graduate students. The colleges could also take similar steps to connect students to rural areas.
If students were exposed to rural life they could think of contributions to rural development once they pass out of the college or university.
Asking teachers not to ignore research activities, he said when he joined the university there were 340 research scholars. Now their number has risen to 1,050. The university hopes to add another 300 researchers by next January.
The Vice-Chancellor said he showed no disparity between teachers in colleges and teachers in the university campus teaching post-graduation courses. He considered college teachers on a par with university teachers and took steps to encourage them by allowing eligible college teachers to guide research scholars. It resulted in having “enemies” for him within the campus as many did not like it.
He said regulations of the University Grants Commission did not allow a college teacher to guide unless he taught post-graduate students. The university would help such teachers as they could teach as guest teachers to post-graduate students in the university.
The Vice-Chancellor asked retired teachers to continue research activities and keep them busy through various activities including writing.
Retired teachers and those teachers who have obtained their Ph.D. degrees recently were felicitated. The Vice-Chancellor released the annual bulletin of the AMUCT.
Ummappa Poojary, president, AMUCT spoke.
