BANGALORE: In what could emerge as a unique, quality-oriented annual affair, third semester postgraduate students of Bangalore University have completed a comprehensive audit of their teachers, quantifying each one of them on a scale of five. A software firm will now collate the data and pronounce the verdict, based on which underperforming teachers will be counselled, asked to improve and take remedial measures.

Vice-Chancellor H.A. Ranganath told presspersons here on Saturday that self-appraisal by teachers was another initiative of the university, where teachers were asked to assess their performance at various levels in the past five years. Besides teaching, they would have to spell out their research activities, conferences attended, papers published and other academic works.

To analyse the self-appraisal and student assessment data, the university would soon constitute an Academic Administrative Audit Committee with at least four external experts as its members.

The panel would look into the report of teachers' audit, he said.

Dr. Ranganath indicated that auditing would eventually become an annual affair. The exercise would cover 300 postgraduate teachers of 46 departments of the university on its Jnanabharathi and Central College campuses.

Undergraduate students would have multiple-choice question papers for their semester examinations from 2008. A decision in this regard would be taken on December 23. The new system would apply to 2nd, 4th and 6th semester students. To prepare a question bank, the university would write to principals of all colleges affiliated to the university, Dr. Ranganath said.

At its annual convocation on January 6, the university would confer a Doctor of Literature (D.Litt) on Rashtrakavi G.S. Shivarudrappa and Doctor of Letters degrees on actor B. Saroja Devi and social activist Ruth Manorama. Supreme Court lawyer F.S. Nariman would deliver the convocation address, he said.

New courses

The university would offer at least three five-year integrated Master's degree programmes from the next academic year under the Schools of Physical and Biological Sciences. The M.Sc. integrated programme in Biological Sciences would be open to II PU qualified candidates. The course would have an inter-disciplinary and holistic approach, Dr. Ranganath said. Sixty per cent of the curriculum would be core subjects without choice, 30 per cent allied subjects with multiple-choice and 10 per cent subjects with choices from Languages, Social Sciences and Philosophy. The university would set up an Advisory Board with expertise from the industry to boost the programmes' relevance.

Kempe Gowda centre

A Kempe Gowda Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences would be set up in the university. The Government had approved the university statutes. A director would be appointed shortly. The centre would focus on research in Humanities and Social Sciences, according to Dr. Ranganath. As part of its Suvarna Karnataka celebrations, the university had invited articles in Kannada from chairpersons of various departments. These articles would be collated into 50 books to be published by the university. The books could serve as reference material for students, he said.

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