Lucknow, Dec 20 The Lucknow University (LU) was the first in the country to introduce curriculum prescribed in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, but about half a dozen associated colleges have expressed their inability to implement the same due to lack of required infrastructures for vocational and co-curricular courses.
These affiliated colleges do not have enough teachers for multi-disciplinary teaching.
According to Chandra Mohan Upadhyay, principal of Kalicharan Post-Graduate (PG) College, "We do not have economics teachers and the NCC is also not available in our college. We also need more trained teachers for vocational courses. As of now, we have decided to introduce cinematography as a vocational course, but due to limited equipment and budget, it is very challenging for us."
Principal of Bappa Sri Narain Vocational PG College Ramesh Dhar Dwivedi said, "For the vocational courses, we want to implement medical lab technician (MLT), carpentry and goods and services tax (GST). But due to lack of infrastructure and teachers, it is so difficult for us to proceed."
Principal of Lucknow Christian College, Pronoti Singh, said, "There is a lot of ambiguity in the terms of major and minor subjects. At the moment, we are focusing on increasing the strength of teachers for both co-curricular and vocational courses."
Vice-principal of Sri Jai Narain Misra PG College, Vinod Chandra, who is also a senior professor of sociology, said, "LU has not uploaded the syllabus of sociology yet on its website. In such a scenario, how am I supposed to teach students. There is a lack of planning and coordination from the LU side."
The principals said that though the NEP 2020 prescribes that a student can opt subjects of other streams/faculties, but LU has not given permission for it. For example, a student of arts can opt for a subject of science or commerce and vice versa.
However, LU guidelines say that a student will have to opt for subjects within the same stream in which she/he has enrolled.
Rajiv Kumar, principal of DAV College, said that many students want to choose subjects from other faculties, but since LU has not given permission, we are not providing such an option.
Principal of Shia PG College, Mohammad Miyan, also said that students are not getting intra-stream of faculty subjects of their choice because of limited options.
"LU has also not provided the list of vocational courses till date," he added.
LU spokesperson Durgesh Srivastava, when contacted, claimed "University has uploaded the syllabi on its portal and all colleges have been notified about vocational subjects."
Regarding restriction on inter-stream subject combinations, he said that introducing intra-stream/faculty in one go would have overloaded colleges with work, hence it was decided to first introduce inter-department within a faculty and then gradually step into inter-faculty studies.
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