No lecturers for popular computer courses

While 950 candidates appeared for 289 posts for contractual lecturers,not a single candidate appeared for the BCA subject. The interview process was recently conducted at Post Graduate Government College,Sector 11.

“For BCA,there was only one applicant,who also did not turn up for the interview,as he got selected as a regular lecturer at one of the private city colleges. Similar is the case with MSc (IT) and BSc (Computer Science). Last year,the Department had sought some relaxation in the selection criteria from the Panjab University. Till last academic session,the classes were taken by these contractual lecturers selected with certain relaxations,” said one of the senior officials of the department.

Keeping in mind the huge number of applications received from students for BCA course,the department conducted a centralised couselling for all city government colleges. For 240 seats for BCA in the four government city colleges,around 2,500 application forms were received. The cut off for BCA was 77.5 per cent for general pool. With the revised UGC guidelines,the lecturers need to have a PhD or be NET qualified,which the applicants failed to comply.

“As none of the candidates was either NET qualified or had a PhD in computers,these posts are still lying vacant. Why would anybody want to do a PhD in computers,when he can get a “good” job after completing graduation in computers?” said Prof Sham Sunder,principal of the Post Graduate Government College,Sector 11,and co-ordinator for the interviews.

In the absence of faculty for these self-financed courses,for which a student pays somewhere around Rs 28,000 as fee,the classes have not been started as yet,despite the fact that session started more than two weeks ago. “To some reasonable extent,a few permanent lecturers are taking classes for the time being,” revealed one of the lecturers at the college.

PU plays spoiltsport

Recently,the UT Department of Higher Education had requested the Panjab University to allow some relaxation for the appointment of contractual lecturers,as no applicant could qualify the criteria. The PU,however,passed a resolution during the Syndicate meeting on July 22 that the appointments of contractual lecturers in all PU-affiliated colleges will be made in strict accordance with the UGC regulations and with due approval of the PU authorities.

BOX: Of the total five government colleges in Chandigarh,four offer BCA course,one MSc (IT) and three offer BSc (computer science).

The number of posts for which not a single candidate appeared included Post Graduate Government College,Sector 11,BCA: 8 posts,MSc (IT): 4posts ,BSc (computer science): 3 posts; Post Graduate Government College for Girls,Sector 42,BCA: 4

posts; Post Graduate Government College for Girls,Sector 11,BCA: 12 posts and Post Graduate Government College,Sector 46,BCA: 4 posts.