Bhubaneswar, Nov. 28: The Utkal University is planning to introduce Choice Based Credit System in all its affiliated colleges from 2015-16 academic year.

The Banki Autonomous College is so far the only college among the 350 affiliated to it to have adopted the system.

Earlier this month, the University Grants Commission (UGC) expressed concern over the quality of education and had made it clear that those varsities failing to fulfil the mandate of the UGC, including filling up of teacher vacancies and introducing the credit system would not be provided with general development grant.

“Introducing the new system has been delayed owing to the shortage of teaching faculty. However, if we fail to do it by the next academic year, the UGC will stop giving us grants. Since the state government has sanctioned the teaching posts and the recruitment process is on, there will be no delay,” said vice-chancellor Ashok Das. The new system will be introduced in all the degree colleges by next year to bring uniformity in the courses, said Das.

The varsity has prepared a new syllabus after extensive study of a major national university along with an international university. On December 5, the varsity has called for a meeting of all the seven vice-chancellors to finalise the syllabus. A committee of vice-chancellors will be formed to make an assessment of the syllabus and make recommendation to the state government.

“The state government sanctioned the recruitment of 51 teaching positions and 36 non-teaching positions. In the first phase, the varsity has advertised for 46 teaching posts and the process of recruitment is on. The remaining recruitments will be carried out shortly,” said Das.

Das said they would fight for the 90 posts that the state government abolished in 2003.

UGC chairman Ved Prakash had issued a letter to universities across the country, warning that grants would be stopped if they failed to fill up teachers’ posts by the next academic year.

Describing the large-scale vacancy of teachers in universities as the principal reason behind the fall in quality education, the letter stated that institutions are required to fill up the vacancies by any means before the start of the next academic year. A large number of teaching posts are falling vacant in universities such as Utkal, Sambalpur, Berhampur, North Odisha and Fakir Mohan.

The higher education department has recently given its approval for filling up 278 posts out of the 459 vacant in different universities of the state.

Agri meet: A three-day agriculture meet began at the Utkal University today. Inaugurating the meet, agriculture secretary Rajesh Verma said Odisha was the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables and there was huge scope of growth. The government has set a target of four per cent growth for the agriculture sector and 6.5 per cent for horticulture.

The three-day event has a number of technical sessions and will be attended by many students, faculty members and researchers.