The fate of thousands of students of Patna University hangs in balance as Raj Bhavan has put a brake on the self-financing and vocational courses from this academic session.

The chancellor’s office is yet to give its nod to run these courses after the system changed from yearly examinations to semesters last year.

The Raj Bhavan, in its directive, stated that it had issued a 22-point checklist, which the university had to comply with before running the courses in the 2013-14 session.

The move has left students worried, as non-approval of courses by Raj Bhavan would jeopardise their future.

Ram Kumar, a first-year MBA student at the university was surprised after finding that classes for the new session, which were to begin on Thursday, were suspended. A notice in the MBA department stated that owing to unavoidable reasons, classes had been suspended till further order.

“I tried to find out the reason but the department staff refused to share information,” he said. Kumar, a graduate in economics from AN College, took admission in the MBA department of Patna University this year. Kumar said: “Classes for the new session were to start in the first week of July, but have been suspended till further notice.”

Also, there are many departments of self-financing and vocational courses at the university that are yet to start their admission process. The department of Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (PMIR), which runs the two-year degree course in rural studies and diploma course in industrial safety management, is yet to issue admission notification for the two courses of session 2013-14. A teacher at PMIR department on condition of anonymity said: “Once the Raj Bhavan gives its nod, the department will issue the admission notification.”

He added: “With the introduction of semester system at the postgraduate level, many traditional (BA, BSc, BCom) as well as self-financing and vocational courses at the postgraduate level in PU changed from yearly examination to semester system.”

Though then governor Devanand Konwar had approved the introduction of semesters at traditional courses, the Raj Bhavan is yet to give its nod for the self-financing course.

University vice-chancellor Arun Kumar Sinha said: “In Patna University, no new course has been started this year. We will request the chancellor to give his nod.”