The State government is likely to adopt some major educational policies by year-end. They include introduction of the honours degree in all State universities and trifurcation of Bangalore University (BU), Higher Education Minister C.T. Ravi said.
Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of a roundtable conference of Vice-Chancellors and educationists on ‘Propagation of Gandhian values and movement against alcoholism and drug abuse’, here on Monday, Mr. Ravi said the government was contemplating several educational policies which will be ready by December.
“I have visited 14 varsities in the State and will visit three by month-end. The major problems I have come across are of a lack of infrastructure and academic atmosphere. Where there is infrastructure, there appears to be inefficiency or imbalance in faculty and faculty strength,” he explained.
To tackle this problem, the government is exploring options including inter-university transfer of faculty or students, he said. “We are also discussing the possibility of introducing the honours degree (an honours undergraduate student studies only one subject in depth as against three being studied in the present system),” he added. On the Education Department’s proposal to split Bangalore University to which 634 colleges are affiliated, Mr. Ravi said there were discussions about whether to divide it into two or three universities. It may be mentioned here that the proposal to bifurcate the varsity into north and south campuses was virtually shelved after the death of the former Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya.
“It is a very big university. We are seeing if it can be divided into north, south and east campuses or bifurcated,” he said.
No ISEET
The Minister also shot down the likelihood of the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET) replacing the State’s Common Entrance Test (CET) for engineering admissions next year. “Our CET is a well established system which has become a role model for the other States. We would like it to be held the next academic year also,” he maintained.
