Vice-chancellor of Central University of Bihar Janak Pandey (centre) and other faculty members at the orientation programme on BIT campus in Patna on Monday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, Aug. 1: The 2011-13 academic session of Central University of Bihar (CUB) will begin tomorrow on the varsity’s temporary campus at Birla Institute of Technology, but with 60 vacant seats.

This year, 100 students have taken admission that is based on Central University Common Entrance Test (Cucet) for eight disciplines the varsity teaches. However, around 60 seats have remained vacant, as students who had applied for the admission test failed to meet the expectations of varsity standards.

During the orientation programme today, students were briefed on various rules and regulations that they require to follow during his course of study. The students were asked to be regular in their classes as 75 per cent attendance is compulsory.

According to registrar Mohammed Nihal, CUB has been established according to Act of Parliament in 2009 and the varsity can’t compromise on education standards. Many subjects, including mathematics has only nine students against the total student strength of 20. Similarly, counselling psychology, a new course has received only six takers. In bio-informatics, 12 students have taken admission, while five students took admission in statistics for this session.

Nihal said: “CUB has some set standards and we can’t compromise on quality.” However, this year there has been increase in number of students who have taken admission as last year there were only 82 students who had taken admission.

Nihal added: “Despite our space limitations, this year, the number of students from outside states has risen from eight to 12.”

Cucet was held on June 18 and June 19. This year, around 7,500 students appeared for the test, which was held in 36 centres across the country, while CUB received 700 applications for 160 seats in eight courses.

The registrar added: “The varsity for the first time since its inception in 2009 has selected 11 regular faculty members for five subjects, development studies, computer science, environmental science, mathematics and statistics.”

The selection of 11 regular faculty members at CUB is seen as an attempt by the varsity to give more stress on quality education to meet the standards of centre of excellence on the lines of which the varsity has been established.

Earlier, CUB vice-chancellor Janak Pandey while addressing students on the orientation progamme, said: “CUB is established with a purpose and its functioning is quite different from other state universities.”

According to National Knowledge Commission, which was formed by the central government in 2005 and headed by Sam Pitroda, which aims at increasing the gross enrolment ratio (GER), these universities have some set goals.

“With globalisation, India and China have emerged as superpowers while the GER of students in the age group of 18 to 23, who have access to higher education in India is still less at 10 per cent, while in China, the GER it is 30 per cent,” said Pandey.