Cuttack, April 24: The state’s premier seat of learning, Ravenshaw University, has joined hands with Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), to offer MBA course.

According to a two-year MoU signed between the university and XIMB, the B-school would provide training support to Ravenshaw teachers, design the course content, provide consultancy on admission and placement as well as extend library support to students.

“Efforts are on to introduce the business programme from the next academic session that starts from August,” Ravenshaw University registrar Satyakam Mishra told The Telegraph today. “Admissions are underway for the 60 seats being offered for the two-years masters degree programme. Options of absorbing students who have appeared for CAT and XIMB tests are being considered,” Mishra added.

Sources revealed that the university also plans to introduce other specialised courses. For that, collaboration with academic, cultural and professional schools such as Indian Council for Cultural Research, Institute of Physics, Institute of Mathematics, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Victoria University and University of Vienna, is underway.

“Preparatory arrangements for new courses are at stages of incorporation,” the registrar said.

A five-year integrated masters degree programme in science was introduced in the last academic session. Only a few institutes like Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and University of Hyderabad offer such courses.

The list of new courses to be introduced include software engineering and management, industrial and mining management, aviation management, nano technology, strategic studies, microbiology and bio-informatics, quantitative economics and finance, environmental economics and technology and earth sciences.

Observers have attributed this new wave of change in the university to Debdas Chotray, who took over as the vice-chancellor recently. The former bureaucrat started the changes by re-organising the existing 23 departments into eight schools.

Mathematics, computer sciences, physical sciences, life sciences, commerce and management studies, social sciences, languages, regional studies, earth sciences, information and performing arts were divided into schools by the university officials.

There are also two centres of learning in the university — centre for ethics and a centre for Oriya arts and aesthetics.