No takers for chemistry course

Sources say the university will have no option but to wind it up after the October 30 deadline, when the first term is officially over. The university claims to have written to students, who were placed in the waiting list, but did not bother to check up whether they have moved up in the list, in a bid to increase the number.

When even those who got admission and their names appeared on the notice board turned their back on the course, the university is not hoping that the exercise to attract waiting students will of any help.

The course will become self-sufficient only if 50 per cent seats are filled. Ever since the course started, the students’ strength has been between 25 and 28, a number enough for the university to meet expenses. “There is no way we can run the course with four students, ” says a senior lecturer.

The approaching deadline coupled with the fact the university is enjoying Diwali vacation, leaves the authorities in no position to see more turnout.

Students’ apathy is not without reason. Most of those who have passed out are yet to secure jobs. On its launch, the course was widely advertised as job-oriented, a promise it could not fulfill.

But there is more than a job, rather the lack of it, to the course’s poor plight. SGU does not have any academic pretensions, but it offers as many as 275 M.Sc. regular seats, when the number in some other, more reputed universities of Gujarat barely enters three figures, says head of Chemistry department Dr K R Desai.

Add to this, the part-time evening degree course in the same subject which has 30 seats. No wonder there are no takers for a course that is not only costly but also does not offer jobs.

If that was not enough delay in admissions due to a host of reasons — teachers’ strike to press for more assessment remuneration, followed by another strike in response to a nationwide call for strike over Rastogi Commission’s recommendations and students’ strike seeking reinstatement of former V-C Ashwin Kapadia — added to the course’s woes.

Increase in the number of M.Sc. (regular) seats was another reason why the post graduate course lost out on students. Insufficient number of seats was one reason that prompted the authorities to push for the introduction of diploma then.

Incidentlally, even the evening course, also self-financing, had run into rough weather on introduction, but is running against all odds. This duration of the evening course was reduced from three to two years when it was found that the number of teaching hours were no different than the two-year regular course.

Some people allege that efforts were made to woo prospective evening course students to the post graduate diploma, where fees are almost one third, but in vain. By paying Rs 10,000 more the students not only gets a degree but can continue his job as well.