Ravenshaw Vikash Abhijan’, a body of former office bearers of erstwhile Ravenshaw College on Monday submitted a memorandum to the State Governor and Chancellor of Ravenshaw University seeking his immediate intervention to set right the premier educational institution of the State, which is now fast losing its glory and importance.
Expressing deep concern over the current state of affairs in the institution, the memorandum has detailed about the poor teacher-student ratio, degrading infrastructure, commercialization of education and above all the State Government’s nonchalant attitude towards the University.
Shocked over the deteriorating academic ambience of the institution, the members of the Vikash Abhijan have urged the Chancellor to ensure that the State Government sanctions adequate posts of faculties to meet the requirement of some 8000 students currently pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the University.
They also mentioned that the old campus set up in 1919 is now proving highly inadequate and that the State Government must take urgent steps to establish the proposed second campus of the University for which land has already been allotted at Naraj, on the western limits of the city.
Coming down heavily on the ongoing self-financing courses run by some private organizations in the University, the memorandum alleged that these organizations over the past one decade have fleeced the students without providing quality education as promised. Seeking to convert the self-financing courses into regular courses, the memorandum demanded that the State Government should financial responsibilities to run these new courses.
It also called for a “one-time special financial package” to renovate the old campus in order to convert it as center of excellence and regular annual grant to improve the academic activities of the university.
It may be mentioned here that the State Government sanctioned only 153 posts of faculty for the University way back in 2006. But due to personal vendetta and acute ego problems of the authorities, the University has now managed to recruit less than 100 posts over these years while the UGC guideline suggests 1:4 and 1:10 teacher-student ratio for PG and UG courses respectively.