The masters course in Sociology,followed by Punjabi,is the most popular course among the students who are pursuing their education through the University School of Open Learning (USOL),erstwhile known as Correspondence Department,of the Panjab University (PU). For the session 2012-13,as many as 612 students took admissions in the first year of Sociology and in the second year,the number of students is 265. However,in the masters in Punjabi,a total of 478 students took admission while in the second year there are 245 students. After Sociology and Punjabi,the masters in History and Hindi are popular choices among the students. According to official data,394 students got enrolled in the first year of masters in History,but the second year has only 176 students. In the case of masters in Hindi,a total of 352 students got admitted in the first year,while the second year has 245 students. Public Administration is the least preferred course among the students as the first year saw only 153 students who got admitted while in the second year there are only 65 students left. Basically distant education is for those who somehow cannot study regularly. Distant education provides them flexibility and students can study at their own convenience. As PU offers both traditional and non-traditional courses,we get many students. We provide them quality notes and all sorts of help, said USOL chairperson,Lalit K Bansal to Chandigarh Newsline. Apart from this,the Masters in Business Administration (MBA) has 500 seats and a total of 480 students are perusing the course. Moreover in BEd there are 800 seats and 790 are enrolled for the same. Interestingly,more than 55 per cent of students in USOL are girls.
