Lack of qualified faculty members and adequate infrastructure has taken the sheen off ‘job-oriented’ self-financing programmes sanctioned by Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) earlier.
The demand for most of these tailor-made courses has declined, according to the varsity authorities, owing to shortcomings in academic and infrastructural requirements.
The expert committee appointed by the government for proposing innovative courses had mentioned in its report that the existing new-generation programmes like B.Sc Microbiology, Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Hotel Management, and Bachelor of Tourism Studies and Management were mostly offered in the self-financing sector.
Employment
Since job opportunities for these programmes as projected initially have not been the same when it comes to reality, the demand came down to near zero in many colleges, and some courses have been wound up for want of applicants.
The failure of the proliferation of specialised courses like those in biotechnology remains a point to be noted while recommending new programmes, the committee had said. It found that many of the ‘skill-oriented’ programmes had failed to meet the expectations of job providers.
Hence, a majority of students who cleared such courses could not find a job. One of the reasons behind it is the lack of consultation with the industry and non-consideration of requirements of job providers, which affected the quality of education offered, it said.
Teachers in various social science disciplines had cited the inadequacy of the curriculum followed in many universities in Kerala to understand the most recent developments in the discipline as a major lacuna in achieving the desired results.
