All that glitters is not gold’. The quotation seems apt for Ranchi University’s (RU) Department of Journalism and Mass Communication which has been running on rented infrastructure for past 26 years at university’s Political Science department rooms with shortage of technical equipments, no girls washroom, no permanent faculty and improper placement opportunities, no drinking water provision and internal politics prevailing among members here.
Newly-appointed director SMPN Singh Shahi (on deputation basis like earlier directors) feels the department ought to undergo challenges for its development in the coming five years. “Infrastructure is required in continuity of our need. The Vice Chancellor Dr lN Bhagat has recently assured us of providing our own self centre for Media Studies. We hope it is in pipeline. We are unable to work out on other problems unless we get a proper infrastructure,” said Dr Shahi who is a permanent Professor at University’s English department. Notably, despite VC’s assurance no proposal has been drawn for this declaration till date.
There is no proper editing software in the video production laboratory at this department. Students here are working on pirated version of Adobe Premiere Pro software. Adding pain to this wounded video production scene one can notice that no Final Cut Pro (FCP) software is installed on Apple brand System which is an essential part of video edit process these days.
“The Australian team which visited our department on June 28 was shocked to see our lab working without FCP software. ‘How do you give masters degree to students without teaching them this important edit softwareIJ’ was their reaction,” said a source requesting for anonymity.
Shockingly, there is no Single lens Reflex (SlR) Camera necessary for learning still photography. Students are dealt with a digital camera for the same purpose. According to official sources, lab equipments worth Rs 12 lakhs purchased seven or eight years back have not been upgraded yet
inspite of being in the
technological era.
Since May 2012, a monthly video magazine named ‘Aankhan Dekhi’ used to be presented with the coordination of the deployed staffs and students but that too was stopped making after this year’s March edition. “This audio visual effort made magazine used to give the students a platform to nourish their electronic media skills by reporting, anchoring, scripting followed with post production techniques,” quoted students and teachers of this department.
Explaining the woe of female students for no toilet availability, a student said, “Unlike other department girls, we are bound to use toilet of the nearby department with hesitation.”
“We teachers and students drink the water in the tea stalls located outside since there is no water purifier,” echoed some individuals of this department.
On the other side, expressing department’s initiative for tackling some of the hurdles Dr Shahi conceded, “We are expecting funds for installing water purifier, still and video camera within a week. The sanction for these three items has already been done. Very soon we shall send the budget for 2013-14 session comprising our remaining demands.”
Confidential documents reveal that costs of few of these sanctioned stuffs are mentioned more than their original manufacturing retail price. Many staffs even complained of the misuse of officially recorded money among the deployed non-teaching staffs.
Notably, the department was supposed to get Rs 12.5 lakhs from University Grants Commission in July last year but unfortunately it could not obtain resulting to lapse of the mentioned amount.
Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication (MJMC) commenced here in 2009. Prior, to that Bachelor in Journalism and Mass Communication (BJMC) equivalent to one year post graduate diploma (PGD) was the only one course carried out which was renamed as PGD in Journalism and Mass Communication in 2012.
Focusing on the career aspect of these two PG courses, staffs explained, “Students have to search their internship and further placement scopes themselves.
Our department just hand overs the official letter required to apply for internship. Sometimes media houses themselves call our Director concerning recruitment for various journalism positions. More than 50 percent students usually find their jobs
themselves.”