PU refuses permission to 2 colleges to run courses

Panjab University has refused permission to two government colleges in the state to run a few courses as they do not have the regular faculty for them.

These are Government College for Girls, Ludhiana, and GKSM Government College, Tanda Umar, Hoshiarpur.

The Ludhiana college had applied for the post-graduation diploma in computer applications and the Tanda college had applied for BA/B Sc first year for the current academic session.

The reason cited is that the colleges don't have permanent faculty and do not pay salary according to the PU norms.

Besides, SCD Government College, Ludhiana, which was already running the post-graduation diploma in computer applications for the past three years, has not received extension for the course, again for the same reasons.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Rajinder Singh, principal of SCD college, said, "We have not received extension to run the course from this academic session. We had already conveyed to the students through the prospectus that in case we received the extension, only then admissions would be conducted. On Wednesday, we also put a circular on the notice board saying there would be no admissions for the course for this academic session. The college had already received 136 applications for the course against the 40 seats."

Government College for Girls, Ludhiana, had received 16 applications as against 20 seats for the PGDCA course. The college that had applied for permission for the new course this year was denied this.

Principal Gurminder Kaur said, "The PGDCA is a self-financed course and we have already hired staff for it. This is the new course which we wanted to start this year as students had shown interest in this. But I am disappointed as the university has refused us permission. But we meet all conditions. Students have already applied for the course and now we will have to refuse admissions."

RS Jhanji, a syndicate and senate member, PU, said, "Why have the government colleges applied for these courses when they are aware that they can't hire permanent faculty?"

Ban on regular staff

The Punjab government has banned the hiring of regular staff for the past 10 years. So that is the reason the government colleges hire contractual staff to run the courses.

However, the UGC guidelines to colleges clearly ask them to advertise posts for regular faculty, and if there is non-availability of NET-qualified staff, then posts of such candidates should be filled by a duly constituted committee of the PU.