Summary
A delayed start in the admission process will come in the way of completion of the syllabus on time, considering that campuses will soon be closed for the Puja vacation, said teachers
Calcutta University will not be able to start its postgraduate classes from October 3 in adherence to guidelines issued by the education department as it has yet to hold admission tests to screen students coming from other universities.
Not just that, the university was also yet to complete the admission process for students coming from colleges affiliated with the university, said an official.
A delayed start in the admission process will come in the way of completion of the syllabus on time, considering that campuses will soon be closed for the Puja vacation, said teachers.
They said when the department announced a schedule for the start of classes on July 13, it was unfortunate that CU did not take steps so it could stick to the deadline.
The notice issued by the department said first semester classes would start on October 3 after the publication of merit lists by September 20.
The notice said the ratio for home university students (students coming from the colleges affiliated with the university) and other university students (coming through the admission tests) in terms of seats “shall be 80:20 in the state-aided universities”.
The university’s home students are admitted on the basis of their performance at the undergraduate level.
“The university authorities held a meeting of the faculty council in late August, asking the heads of the departments to set questions for the admission tests and send those by September 7. We complied with that. But the tests could not be held. It is an administrative failure that the classes cannot start on time,” said Sanatan Chattopadhyay, the secretary of the university’s teachers’ association. “A delayed start will make it difficult to complete the syllabus on time.”
Asked about the delay in the admission tests, CU registrar Debasish Das said: “We won’t be able to start the classes from October 3. The university is trying to start classes on October 10. Admission tests could not be held for some reasons.”
Why could the university not complete the admission process for its own students?
“There are students who passed the sixth semester but failed in the fourth semester, making them ineligible for admission. To make those students eligible, we had their results reviewed and the results post-review have been published. This took time,” registrar Das told Metro.
This newspaper reported on July 14 that the start of the postgraduate academic session had to be deferred as several universities were forced to push back the conduct of the sixth-semester undergraduate examination because the college buildings were used for the panchayat polls held on July 8.
The exams in the theoretical papers of BA and BSc (honours), and BA and BSc (general), which were scheduled from June 27, started on July 15 at colleges affiliated with Calcutta University.
A teacher of Calcutta University said the varsity had ample time to complete the formalities so it could start the postgraduate classes on October 3.
“The results of the sixth semester were published by the end of August. Therefore, the process of reviewing and conducting the admission tests to the postgraduate courses could be completed in between. However, the university administration failed to react. We apprehend that classes will start in November,” the teacher said.
Registrar Das said they were going to start the classes before the Durga Puja vacation.
Last updated on 01 Oct 2023
