Spanner in the works for Hindi engineering courses
The three engineering courses offered at the university incidentally have 180 seats.
The lack of students’ response has put the university authorities in a bind, prompting them to wonder whether the courses should be abandoned.
“The concept is very good, but due to want of awareness, people don’t understand it well. I don’t think we should continue the course. Spending crores of rupees in developing infrastructure, constructing 20 classes and appointing 20 teachers for just a few students don’t appear feasible,” said Ramdev Bhardwaj, the university’s newly appointed vice-chancellor.
“The university academic council will soon sit to decide whether we should continue running the courses or not,” Bhardwaj added.
When established, the university had lofty objectives, including developing engineers who would contribute to the development of the state as well as their country. The university had also written to various IITs last year that it was ready to enrol students who were struggling to learn engineering in English at their institutes.
Learning engineering in Hindi, however, is proving to be an extremely daunting task. Text books on engineering subjects are rare and teachers rarer. The university currently has around four ad-hoc teachers and not a single permanent engineering teacher.
However, the engineering department staff feels the courses should not be discontinued in a huff. For, any new concept takes years to bloom, they say.
“Without a good infrastructure and faculty, the university should not expect good enrolment of students,” said an administrator in the engineering department who didn’t wish to be named.
The Madhya Pradesh government, however, has left it to the university authorities to take a call. “Now, Atal Bihari Vajpayee University is an autonomous body and they can take their decision on their own,” said the minister of state for technical education minister, Deepak Joshi.