Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University aims to improve on attendance

Focusing on improving attendance of students in the coming year, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) vice-chancellor Vijay Pandharipande, said, “The volunteers of the National Service Scheme (NSS) are likely to conduct a survey in the affiliated colleges of the city and the four districts of the region. The survey would get opinions of students to identify the reasons for non-attendance.” The campaign named ‘Chala collegela chala’ (Let us go to college) would also find out the challenges and difficulties faced by the students with help of student coordinators. “The survey would involve boys, girls, parents and others. A detailed report will be submitted by February 15 which would be analysed by university professors, faculty members and officials concerned,” Pandharipande said. “Corrective measures would be taken accordingly by consulting academic staff members, senate members, management council and the board according to the suggestions received from the students. It is important that students imbibe the significance of learning and thirst for knowledge,” he added. Aiming to improve the quality of teaching, Pandharipande said that the vacant seats of qualified teaching and non-teaching staff members would also be filled in the first two months of the new year. He said that the university would continue to remove affiliation from institutes who are not performing well. “The students should also check for credibility of the educational institutions before taking admissions,” Pandharipande said. Replying to the query on administrative delays and other decision making process, Pandharipande said that the university is practicing caution before taking any step. On examination reforms that are still a major challenge to the university, the VC said that though technology is being used to solve the financial and administrative aspects, the real problem of evaluating the learning capability of students is still a concern. “With number of colleges, the method of teaching and conducting classes differ. The geographic locations also matter and hence it is unfair to test the grasping power of all students with the same question paper,” he said, adding that having a system that will normalise the entire process is a challenge. Pandharipande also said that colleges would be invited to and appealed to seek autonomous status. The VC, however, expressed concern over the limitations of resources for further development. “With limited resources and majority of students belonging to rural background, the university has little scope to raise funds for development. Many skill development and other programmes can not be conducted as it is not possible to sponsor the students,” he said, adding that the funds and scholarships received through MoUs and private companies are also limited. Source: Education News