Ranchi, June 18: Less demand in the job market has led the government to introduce fresh courses and withdraw old ones.

The state government has withdrawn the one-year diploma course in modern office practice (MOP) from three women polytechnics in Ranchi, Bokaro and Jamshedpur.

Passouts were rendered jobless after completing the course successfully.

The state government introduced a three-year diploma course in electrical and electronics engineering (EEE) that has better potential in the job market.

Students could opt for the one-year diploma course after completing Intermediate studies. But for personal assistant jobs in the state government, graduation is the minimum required qualification. Thus, students could not meet the required criterion.

Several students have already dropped out of the course and only three girls of the current batch have passed MOP from Government Women’s Polytechnic.

Intermediate students were required to take the Jharkhand Joint Entrance competitive examination, held every year in April, for taking admission in MOP.

Three courses that run in the polytechnics are communication engineering, information technology and instrumentation control.

M. Tirkey, the principal of the polytechnic in the state capital said the government felt MOP yielded no jobs. “Besides it does not have any demand. Instead, the government has introduced EEE, which is a job-oriented course,” the principal informed.

The principal rued that jobs offered by the state government are not suitable. “They should have thought about its prospects before introducing the course. But in other states, the course is running successfully and girls are getting jobs as private secretaries, stenographers and instructors,” she added.

Besides, there was a great problem to get teachers to teach the MOP course. “We had to invite guest faculties to take the classes,” she added.

MOP courses are not popular due to lack of awareness among the students and absence of trained and qualified teachers to take the course,” Tirkey pointed out.

The number of seats for the four other courses running in the polytechnic has been increased from 30 to 60. “Recently, through the JPSC, two teachers were appointed in the polytechnic to teach EEE and electronics engineering,” Tirkey said.

This polytechnic has 11 sanctioned posts including that of the principal.

“Only five teachers are taking the class while the remaining six posts are lying vacant,” Tirkey added. “We have got repeated assurances from the state government but it is only on paper,” she added.

The appointment of teachers was supposed to take place during the time of united Bihar. But nothing has been done yet. “But even after the bifurcation of the state, the government did not made any fresh appointments since the past seven to eight years. It’s very difficult to run classes with part-time teachers but we are managing as students are taking admission on the regular basis,” she rued.

A student of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, Rita Sinha, was surprised that the MOP course has been withdrawn.

“We are also under constant fear that other courses also might get withdrawn if we do not get regular teachers,” Sinha added.