By Our Spl correspondent
Shillong: In an attempt to connect to the world outside the University walls, the Vice Chancellor, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Prof AN Rai, assisted by Pro-VC Prof David Syiemlieh and Registrar L Roy had a tete-a-tete with editors of local newspapers on Saturday at the VC’s residence.
Prof Rai said he wanted to brief the media about the University system and how things work within this system.
Announcing that under the latest ranking system by India Today (Aug 15, 2011) NEHU was ranked 25th among all Indian Universities, with a factual ranking of 21 while Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) which is ranked 2nd scored 26 in the same criterion.
Prof Rai said it is a matter of pride that NEHU ranked higher than many universities set up much before it.
Informing that under the 11th Plan NEHU was supposed to create six new departments in the Shillong campus, namely Energy engineering, Nano engineering Technology, Bio-medical engineering, Architecture, Mass communication and Hotel Management.
In Tura campus the new subjects are Agri-business, Horticulture, History and Archaeology.
“Although we are now nearing the end of the 11th Plan period the funds allocated for setting up the above courses will be carried forward into the 12th Plan since the 11th Plan was finalised only in late 2008 and sanction from the Centre only came in by 2009,” Prof Rai informed.
Stating that this also falls in place quite well as it will enable NEHU to adopt the new UGC rules for recruitment which came into effect in June 2010, Prof Rai said, “We had to amend the rules and change the ordinances. The Academic Council met in November 2010 for this and the Ministry for Human Resources Development (MHRD) and Finance Ministry are apprised of this.”
Speaking about the much-touted Academic Reforms, Prof Rai said at the post-graduate level NEHU will adopt the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) which would allow students greater flexibility to choose their subjects and adopt a twinning process whereby a student taking up a Science subject but also interested in music could add the credits from music to the Science subject.
Explaining this, Pro-VC Prof David Syiemlieh said, “Some portion of the course would be compulsory while a certain percentage would be optional,” adding that this allows students a basket of courses to choose from.
Coming to under-graduate courses, Prof Rai said the semester and credit system will be introduced in the colleges as well, stating that once this system is taken on board. much of the evaluation would henceforth be conducted internally in colleges.
“It is only a matter of time before colleges go this way because the UGC mandate is that every course must switch to the semester system. If colleges do not meet this deadline they will suffer as the UGC would then cut off their grants in aid,” Prof Rai informed.
Under the semester system students would be allowed improvement in the subjects they have not done well in. Out of six semesters the students would be allowed to go up to a maximum of ten within which to complete their improvement but in the appropriate semesters, so as not to upset the normal course, Prof Syiemlieh said, adding that students would also be allowed to appear for their back papers but only in their final semester, so as not to hold up the results.