Even months after the announcement of implementing semester system and choice-based credit system (CBCS),the M S Universitys Faculty of Commerce is yet to form a committee to initiate the process. While the Commerce faculty is among the largest faculties in the university comprising over 40 per cent of the university students,the faculty members are not much optimistic about the implementation of the system. Following the state governments notification,the faculty had announced the proposal to implement CBCS in January which was passed in the universitys syndicate meeting in April. However,no plan of action has been taken up since then even as the Faculty of Science has already implemented CBCS from the current academic year. We will form a committee in a couple of days. The process was delayed due to vacation. However,a 10-member committee comprising head of departments,deans of other faculties and other university members will be constituted. We should be able to implement CBCS by next year, said A R Hingorani,the dean of the Faculty of Commerce. However,faculty members point out at the failure of the earlier proposals considered in the last decade for improving the standard of education in the faculty. A 50-member committee,including academicians and industrialists,formed during Vice-Chancellor K C Upadhyays tenure had pointed out that BCom graduates of our university do not meet the requirements of the industries. A massive task was taken up to revise the syllabus and course structure but it was never taken up by the faculty board, said Pragnesh Shah,a teacher in the Faculty of Commerce. Later,there were two other proposals to start a parallel degree B Com (Honours) and an interdisciplinary course at post-graduate level. The faculty gets different types of students. While most students from Gujarati medium cannot cope up with a difficult syllabus,a separate B Com (Honours) curriculum was proposed for good students which would have helped increase the standard of the faculty, said a member of one such committee formed in 2006. He added: Also,during the tenure of Vice- Chancellor Manoj Soni,a special committee was formed to revise the syllabus of M Com to make it at par with that of MBA. The committee studied the syllabus offered at 15 top universities in India and the UK and the report was submitted but it could never see the light of the day. Most of the proposals were rejected due to inter-departmental conflicts. The earlier proposals to upgrade the standard of education in the faculty were rejected but this time there is pressure from the state government. Secondly,the intake of large number of students in the faculty also affects the implementation of such proposals. We cannot refuse admission to students as this is a residential university and there is a demand for studying in the M S University, said Hingorani.
