No PG courses in Plus Three colleges in Odisha from this year

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Aug 7:

The Higher Education department has decided not to allow Post Graduate (PG) courses to be opened in any Plus Three colleges in Odisha, departmental sources said

Authorities of the Plus Three colleges, where the PG courses have been introduced, have been asked to stop it forthwith.

A decision to this effect was taken at a high level meeting presided over by the Development Commissioner recently because of reports that there are no eligible teachers in these colleges to  teach PG students and that the courses of studies meant for the PG streams are not being properly covered.

It was decided at this meeting that the the number of seats in the colleges located in the rural and educationally backward areas of the state would be increased.

To provide more opportunities to the girl students under the Women Empowerment programme, priority would be given to open Science and Commerce streams in all Women’s colleges.

Taking note of the disturbances created by the students of self-financing courses running in some colleges, it was decided to stop these courses to restore peace in the campuses and provide quality teaching to Plus Three students.

The Higher Education department would issue a notification and direct the concerned principals of these colleges to take steps to stop self-financing courses soon, sources said.

The meeting also decided not to allow the opening of new Plus Two and Plus Three colleges from the current academic session as large number of seats in the newly opened colleges have fallen vacant during the admission in the Plus Two and Plus Three streams this year.

The meeting also decided to provide Rs 50 lakh to the department of Technical Education under Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) towards the strengthening of infrastructure and quality teaching in the engineering colleges, diploma/polytechnique institutes, MBA and MCA institutes.