Firm on its decision to launch the four-year degree courses from this academic session, the university administration has called a meeting of all college principals to clear doubts pertaining to introduction of the new pattern on Wednesday. The meeting will be chaired by university vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh. Sources said this is being done in order to come to a final consensus with the parties and confirm on the submission of the courses to the Academic Council.
Talking to The Pioneer, Singh on Monday said that the process for implementation of new pattern is in its final stage and the university is all set to launch it from this academic session. On the allegations of rushing into the implementation, he said that this was propaganda by a section that wanted to stop the university from making any reform due their political interests.
“There was no confusion at all. A section from the university staff unfortunately tries to cast the whole change in a negative light. We have been transparent with everything and a series of regular consultations held by meeting our colleagues since its conceptualisation. There has been support from majority. Especially, after an open letter I wrote to all my colleagues, they responded with great encouragements and expressed their mutual support,” the V-C said.
Speaking about implementation of new pattern, he said that the bulletin of information will be out latest by May 10. “All the courses have been approved by their respective departments. We have been updating on the developments through media. The final course report would be tabled for approval with the Academic Council mostly by next week. My team has worked very hard and everything has been followed in sequence. The noise going around is very unfortunate. Even though we practice transparency and let the dissenting voices speak, our own collegues are going about and slamming things unnecessarily. The concern about education of our future generations bothers us equally as anyone else. It is a challenge for us as an institution to be the first in taking up changes. And they have been done cautiously by considering the future of our students,” he added.
The principal from the oldest and most prestigious colleges of the university also expressed their consensus with the university decision. Principal of St Stephen’s College Valson Thampu said the reputation of a college could be of high status but it runs on the instructions of the university. “We have been informed and explained about the new undergraduate courses. As an institution, we stand by the decisions of the university,” he added.
Pradyumn Kumar, principal of The Hindu College, confirmed that another meeting was called by the vice-chancellor and all the principals were invited. He said the university has continuously been communicating with the colleges and all the doubts regarding the four-year courses were slowly cleared among the staff members.