No jobs for vocational course students
2 min readPATNA: The vocational courses in state are no more fetching lucrative jobs for the students, who allege the colleges or universities do not provide necessary infrastructural facilities and competent teachers for imparting proper them training despite paying a handsome amount as fees.
“Students are admitted to vocational courses, but they are not provided with quality education. Laboratory facilities are not up to the mark. Hence, we are not able to do practical classes. Theory classes are invariably engaged by contract teachers and most of whom fail to satisfy the curiosity of students,” said Manoranjan, who completed a three-year biotechnology honours course from B N College, a constituent unit of Patna University.
In many colleges at Patna or elsewhere, professional courses like Bachelor in computer applications (BCA) or master’s in computer applications are reportedly outsourced to some private agencies.
Sources said all vocational courses taught in different institutions are being managed by their parent departments. Consequently, either teachers from general courses are coordinating and teaching the students or some resource persons are being outsourced.
A few years ago, the chancellor’s advisory committee had reportedly recommended for appointment of at least three core faculty members in each vocational or self-financing course, but that is yet to be implemented. Neither did the universities approach the state government for sanctioning posts for the newly started vocational courses, nor did the government initiate measures for improving the quality of education.
About three years ago, the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) advertised nearly 3,500 posts of assistant professors in different subjects for all universities of the state. But not a single post was advertised for any vocational course anywhere.
PU mathematics department head and vocational courses chief coordinator Bal Gangadhar Prasad admitted that vocational courses at most places were not being conducted properly primarily of absence of full-time faculty and lack of placement cell. However, in PU, necessary steps have been initiated recently for streamlining all the self-financing courses by rationalizing the fee structure and ensuring quality teaching. A centralized placement cell has also been constituted for securing suitable jobs for the passouts, he added.
More surprisingly, such ‘sunrise’ courses are introduced at many institutions without seeking the chancellor’s approval. The authorities continue to admit students for years and years and also conduct their examinations, but they face difficulty in publishing their examination results without the chancellor’s nod on the admission ordinance and examination related to the courses.
Taking a serious note of the various irregularities in the conduct of vocational courses, the chancellor’s secretariat has asked the vice-chancellors of all the universities to obtain prior approval of the governor, the state government (for sanction of seats) and the regulatory bodies concerned, like AICTE, BCI and MCI. The VCs have also been directed to display all the relevant information on the university’s website and print the same in the prospectus of the course.
Courtesy: TNN
