Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore   

BU to start six honours courses

By Nagesh Prabhu

BANGALORE Sept. 9. Bangalore University has chalked out a plan to start integrated honours courses from the next academic year to meet the challenges posed by globalisation and provide young talent to industry.

The university has decided to start six integrated honours courses in physical sciences, chemical sciences, mathematical sciences, life sciences, arts and humanities, and sociological sciences.

Most of the courses being offered are not helping students fulfil the needs of industry. The new courses will provide training to students and help them get jobs, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, M.S. Thimmappa, told The Hindu.

The courses would be innovative and would comprise theory and practical subjects. Courses in arts, commerce, and science being offered now were theory-based. The knowledge the students gained in classrooms had little relevance in practice. Hence, the new courses would cover a whole gamut of core subjects with focus on requirements of the industry and research institutions, he said.

To prepare the course content, the university had entered into an understanding with major academic and research institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science, Indian Space Research Organisation, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Committees had been formed for the purpose.

The university would conduct entrance test for admission of students who had passed the pre-university examination, he said.

For the convenience of the students, the university would start the new courses on the Central College campus and the departments there would be shifted to the Jnana Bharati campus.

The Central College had 11 departments, including MBA, MCA, chemistry, commerce, the law college, foreign languages, and the examination wing.

These departments would be shifted to the Jnana Bharati Campus in a phased manner. At least four departments would be shifted to the campus by the end of this academic year, the Vice-Chancellor said.

New buildings

To accommodate the departments shifted from the Central College Campus, the university had prepared plans for new buildings and some of them would be ready by next year. The university would construct an evaluation centre at a cost of Rs. 1.38 crore, a building for the Biotechnology Department at a cost of Rs. 1.26 crore, a building for the women's hostel at a cost of Rs. 1.10 crore, a building for the Environmental Sciences Department at a cost of Rs. 30 lakh, a building for the Architecture Department at a cost of Rs. 55 lakh, and other works would be taken up at a cost of Rs. 1.98 crore, Prof. Thimmappa said.

He said S.N. Kiran Shankar, Chief Architect, Architecture Department of Bangalore University, had prepared the building plans. The engineering division of the university would execute the work.

He said the University Grants Commission (UGC) would release Rs. 7.5 crore to the university during the 10th Five-Year Plan. In the first phase, it had released Rs. 2.5 crore.

The UGC had cleared a proposal by the university to fill 20 posts of teachers, he added.

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