With no students, 12 BU colleges close down

Reflects the lack of interest in science, arts and commerce courses

Twelve colleges affiliated to Bangalore University (BU) have shut down this academic year, after failing to find takers.

The colleges, which offered science, arts and commerce courses, have indicated their inability to function further.

Officials in BU’s affiliation section said that among the 12 colleges — all offering undergraduate courses — some were newly-opened evening colleges that failed to attract students.

“These colleges conveyed to us that they want to close down as there were no takers. We have written to the State government to complete the process,” said BU Registrar (Administration) K.K. Seethamma.

The closure of these colleges is a reflection of a recurring scenario in the past few academic years of general education, especially Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science, losing its sheen.

The Hindu had earlier reported about several BSc. departments in city colleges shutting down owing to lack of students. As on today, BU has 507 affiliated colleges offering general education courses.

With this development, the number of affiliated colleges has come down from 614 undergraduate and postgraduate colleges in 2013–14 to 590 for the current academic year. The 590 affiliated colleges include 22 new colleges added this year.

“Apart from the 12 colleges, one was disaffiliated by the university. The remaining are B.Ed. (teacher education) colleges,” an official said.

B.Ed. courses

As for B.Ed. courses, only 61 of the nearly 120 colleges offering the course stay affiliated to BU. It may be recalled that the controversy surrounding B.Ed. colleges erring on several counts, including allowing students to appear for exams without attending classes, continued for over two years after which the university decided to take a tough stand.

Prof. Seethamma said that B.Ed. was a one-year course and hence the students wouldn’t be affected. And the colleges offering other undergraduate courses barely had admissions, she said.