Patna, June 12: Blame it on the lackadaisical approach of the varsity authorities or lack of interest among teachers, the semester system would be introduced in the Patna University next year.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had asked the varsity to introduce the semester system from July 2011. But several postgraduate departments failed to submit their new syllabi for it.

According to the UGC guidelines, all the departments have to submit their new syllabus to the varsity before the introduction of the semester system. It is then assessed by two senior teachers from the universities outside the state where the semester system is in vogue.

The Patna University vice-chancellor, Sudipto Adhikari, said: “Many postgraduate departments failed to submit the new syllabus for the semester system, leaving us with no option but to introduce it from the next academic session only.”

The postgraduate departments like political science, home science, Bengali and psychology were the defaulters.

Adhikari said: “The UGC has set July 2012 deadline for introduction of the semester system, failing which the funds provided by it for infrastructure development and research activities would be stopped.”

The varsity has directed all its postgraduate departments to reconstitute their statutory boards of courses and studies at the earliest so they could approve their syllabi under the semester system. Arun Kumar Sinha, dean, faculty of science, said: “All postgraduate department heads have been asked to prepare the new syllabus to be introduced in the semester system.”

Besides the non-submission of syllabus by a few departments, the man crunch in the varsity was a spanner in the introduction of the semester system. With not enough teachers on board, checking copies every six months under the semester system would have been an uphill task.

The Patna University Teachers’ Association general secretary Randhir Kumar Singh said: “The university does not have requisite infrastructure to start the semester system. The varsity is facing severe teachers’ crunch. There is also lack of basic infrastructure like classrooms and laboratories to run the semester system.”

The varsity is at present functioning with just the half of its sanctioned strength of teachers.

With the introduction of semester system, there would be continuous evaluation of the students with half-yearly examination. The two-year postgraduate courses would be divided into four semesters. The duration of each semester would be six months.

Apart from the semester exams, the students would have to perform well in class tests, extra-curricular activities. Their attendance, too, has to be healthy. For, 20 per cent marks would hinge on these.

In each subject, there would be 16 papers. Four papers would comprise each semester.