By Mehboob Inamdar
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The traditional courses within the jurisdiction of public universities across the State have witnessed a 30 per cent decline in admissions during the last few years for different reasons including non-job-oriented, outdated courses and lack of skills.
It may be noted that a meeting of vice-chancellors of all the universities was held at Raj Bhavan recently. One of the issues of the discussions was a decline in the strength of students in traditional courses, including B A, B Com and B Sc within their jurisdiction.
Most of Vcs expressed concern over the reduced enrolment of students for the traditional courses between 30 per cent to 40 per cent.
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3.5 K colleges in State
There are more than 3,500 colleges within 13 public universities. Of them, 2,500 are non-aided while 1177 are aided. There are 300 UG colleges with 3 lakh students, within the jurisdiction of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) affiliated for the current academic year. Of them, 110 are aided colleges.
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Nearly 40 K to 50 K decline in division
The number of admissions is traditional colleges has reduced during the last few years. Talking to this newspaper, Vice Chancellor Dr Pramod Yeole said that the students' strength was reduced by 40,000 to 50,000 in traditional courses in the affiliated colleges in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Beed and Dharashiv. He said that this is not just happening in Bamu, but other universities are also experincing the same situation.
He said that today students prefer a short term or those courses which help them to get a job or become self-employed immediately.
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No permission granted to a new college in 3 years
He said that the traditional universities would have to design the courses which are in high demand of job markets or industries. “We have not given any permission to new colleges during the last three years based on a policy of maintaining quality and standard of education.
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Rise in private universities
Restructuring courses with the pace of time is not possible in public universities due to the lengthy approval process while private universities can redesign the courses easily. Their number has reached up to 27 in the State. This is another reason for reducing the number of students' strength in traditional colleges as they migrate to private universities for job-oriented courses.