Hundreds of students who have studied various specialisations of M.Com at the University of Madras may not be eligible for teaching jobs in the State.
The new rules for recruitment of school and college teachers for commerce-related courses, released by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB), do not include the specialisations offered by the varsity.
University of Madras offers specialisations such as trade and services, business system, trade and development, international business and international finance for M.Com. These and M.Com (accounting finance) offered by affiliated colleges do not find a place in the official list of equivalent degrees in the prospectus issued by the TRB.
This has created much furore among students and alumni of the commerce department of the University and its affiliated colleges.
“It is strange they have included specialisations offered by other universities in the State but not those offered by the University of Madras,” said Sasikumar who is pursuing M.Com (trade) at the University.
The applications for teaching posts need to be submitted before July 10, but candidates are worried, even if they apply, their forms will be rejected by the board, once the verification begins.
“When they have included specialisations such as computer applications, banking and corporate finance, what is wrong with the ones offered by the University for many years now,” said Sasikumar.
Students said the specialisations were introduced by the University of Madras in 1995 to revive the M.Com course. C. Ravi, an associate professor in a self-financing college, said, “The specialisations were introduced to enhance the employability of students, not to deprive them of existing prospects.”
He said many students pursued M.Com to get into teaching. “This omission puts the future of hundreds of candidates in danger,” he said.
Till last year, students said, the TRB had no such clause and accepted all M.Com specialisations.
Experts said the omission could be the result of a lack of communication between the TRB and University officials.
The equivalence committee always looks at the new courses and their relevance, the syllabi and exam patterns and their equivalence with the basic degrees. The equivalence moderating committees are usually monitored by organisations such as the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission and the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education.“The various specialisations teach the same core subjects and there are at least 7-8 common papers a semester. That is sufficient to teach commerce students. The TRB prospectus should have simply mentioned an M.Com to avoid this confusion,” said K. Nirmala Prasad, principal of M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women.
This omission, said Arul Alan M.V., former syndicate member of the University, would threaten the employability of commerce teachers in schools too, a significantly larger number than college teachers. “The University should step in and resolve the issue.”
