Missing Mentors: Ranchi University

A severe staff crunch has forced Ranchi University to shelve plans of introducing the semester system at the undergraduate level from this year.

There are around 90,000 students enrolled in various colleges of the university at the undergraduate level and officials maintained that given the abysmally low faculty strength, it was not going to be possible to introduce the semester system in the near future.

With the aim to approach quality teaching in a holistic manner, the Union human resources development ministry first mooted the i semester system in 2009, where in it asked all varsities to adopt it at the graduate and postgraduate levels.

Ranchi University was not quick to embrace the idea.

In 2009, it first announced it would be adopting the semester system at the postgraduate level, but took three years to implement it. According to pro-vice chancellor V.P. Sharan, examinations under the new system were conducted this year.

“Under the semester system, examination pattern changes as there are two sets of tests in a year unlike the traditional annual test,” said Sharan.

According to him, semester system at the undergraduate level was unthinkable at present.

“We were planning to slowly introduce the semester system at the undergraduate level after PG, but we have now put it on hold unless things improve. We don’t even have 10 per cent of the faculty strength required for the purpose,” he said.

He added that even Delhi University was finding it difficult to implement the semester system at the undergraduate level even though it had more teachers. “So it is difficult for us to even say when we would be able to adopt it unless JPSC starts recruiting,” he said.

In Ranchi, only four colleges — Ranchi College, Women’s College, Marwari College and St Xavier’s College have semester system at the undergraduate level.

Meanwhile, the university was rocked by protests in the second half on Monday as students of Cambridge Institute of Technology created a ruckus against the college management’s decision to stop them from appearing for exams. The management had made it mandatory for students to pass individually in practical and theory assignments.