UoM Academic Council meeting held

Mysore/Mysuru: University of Mysore (UoM) will start M.Sc course in Clinical Reproduction Genetics from this year.

Announcing this at the UoM Academic Council meeting at Vijnana Bhavan in Manasagangothri here on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Prof. G. Hemantha Kumar said that the four semester M.Sc course in Clinical Reproduction Genetics and M.A. Course in Defence and Strategic Studies has been approved by the Council. M.Sc course will be offered in association with Mediwave IVF and Fertility Research Hospital, and a memorandum of understanding in this regard will be signed soon, he added.

Prof. Hemantha Kumar pointed out that a proposal will be sent to the Government to establish a Medical College for which the UoM was ready to provide a plot measuring about 25 acres.

“We had 20 acres of land on the Chamundi foothills and an Institute was already planned over there. However, even today, the University is ready to establish the Medical College like the establishment of the  Engineering College on its campus last year, provided UoM gets funds from the Government,” he maintained, adding that 17 temporary faculty members have been appointed to the Engineering College.

The VC said that the School of Pharmacy is coming up with B.Pharm course and it has been planned to introduce D.Pharm course from this year itself.

Teaching posts

Replying to a question by MLC C.N. Manjegowda, the VC said that the dearth of faculty in the University has affected the student-teacher ratio and also its overall rating, which has dropped to A from A+. Out of the 667 teaching posts, the University currently has 272 posts and guest lecturers are being appointed every year to deal with the shortage of teaching staff.

Replying to Academic Council member Shashi from Mandya, Prof. Hemantha Kumar said he would once again write to the Government to consider inclusion of Academic Council members, like the Syndicate members, in the College Inspection Committees.

LLB course

UoM School of Law Dean Maruti said the Law Department was making continuous efforts to get recognition for B.Com LLB course that the University has been running for the past two-three years. The Law Department was pursuing the case with the BCI (Bar Council of India) and the necessary fee for the recognition has been paid. While there is recognition for the B.A.LLB course started in 2014, the B.Com LLB course was awaiting recognition, he said, while asserting that the issue will not harm the students future as the recognition of the course would be retrospective.

Fee hike

The University has decided to increase the fee for both online and offline courses. While the proposed hike is 30 percent for online courses, it is 5 percent for offline courses.

The other decisions taken included restriction of the tenure of Principals of UoM’s constituent Colleges to three years, one-time online exam for Chinese students who are unable to get Visa to return to Mysuru to complete B.Tech course and appointment of Dean to the School of Engineering that was started last year.

UoM Registrar Prof. R. Shivappa, Registrar (Evaluation) Prof. A.P. Jnanaprakash, Prof. Basavarajappa, Prof. Muzaffar Assadi and others attended the meeting.