Cuttack, May 17: Ravenshaw University has introduced three new postgraduate courses in Sanskrit, statistics and international studies.

Vice-chancellor B.C. Tripathy said the two-year master’s programmes in Sanskrit (32 seats), statistics (24 seats) and international studies (36 seats) would be launched from this academic session. The varsity would also offer M.Phil in life sciences (eight seats) and a self-financing part-time MBA course.

“As part of our ongoing effort to offer quality higher education, we have decided to start three new programmes and also a part time MBA course,” said Tripathy.

Sources said that the part time MBA (30 seats) would not be run under the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

The university has decided to conduct the entrance examination for all the postgraduate courses including the three new programmes in June.

The premier educational institution has decided to set up an examination centre at Bhawanipatna.

Earlier, the students from this area had to come to Cuttack to take the entrance test.

Lack of infrastructure and shortage of teaching staff is dogging the university. At present, there are only 112 faculty members while the sanctioned number of posts is 153. There is also an acute shortage of classrooms.

“Only one classroom is allotted for a batch of 120 students. But there are not enough benches for everyone to sit,” said a faculty member of the history department.

University officials admitted the problems of infrastructure and lack of adequate teaching staff.

“We have decided to rope in retired professors and teachers to fill up existing vacancies while efforts are also on to increase the infrastructure to run new schools and courses,” Tripathy said.

A new academic block is already being built on the university campus.

The three-storey academic block will have laboratories, classrooms and facilities for teaching staff. Construction is likely to be completed next year.