Mahatma Gandhi University is playing with the future of its law students.
The classes for the students of 2011 batch of B.A. (Criminology) LLB double degree course will begin from November first week onwards. But the varsity is yet to conduct their seventh and eighth semester examinations. Interestingly, the seventh semester ended in May and the ongoing eighth semester classes will come to a close on October 31.
The Hindu has learnt that the varsity remains clueless on when to schedule the examinations pending for the two key semesters in the five-year programme being offered by its affiliated institutions.
Teachers said that the uncertainty has resulted in total chaos in the running of the course. “We are confused as to whether study leave should be given to the students as there is no clarity on the examinations,” said a senior faculty member of Government Law College here. The lapses on the part of the varsity seem not confined to the examination alone, but in the finalisation of inclusion of new courses and re-arrangement of subjects for the five-year programme.
The Academic A IV section issued an order on October 13 approving the syllabi of Hindi/Malayalam and Alternate Dispute Resolution of the eighth semester B.A (Criminology) LLB course. The directive came a few days before the conclusion of the eighth semester on October 31.
Curiously, the colleges had started offering the second language (Malayalam/Hindi) programmes at the start of the eighth semester based on a decision of the Board of Studies in Law held on May 26. The question on how the language course was taught on the campuses in the eighth semester without the academic council’s approval for its syllabus, which eventually came on October 13, remains unanswered.
Faculty members also reminded that indiscriminate re-shuffling of the course pattern will prove harmful for professional programmes. Even removing a course and replacing it with a new one should be made on strong grounds and not on an ad-hoc manner, they said.
Varsity is yet to conduct their seventh and eighth semester examinations.
