The Hindu

Bangalore, May 8: Bangalore University will introduce bachelor of business management (BBM) and bachelor of computer applications (BCA) courses under the distance education stream from this academic year.

These new courses under the Directorate of Correspondence Courses and Distance Education is one among the many recommendations of a high-power committee accepted by the Syndicate, to make the directorate more active, said BU Registrar Sanjay Vir Singh. He was briefing presspersons on the deliberations of the Syndicate meeting chaired by Vice-Chancellor N. Prabhu Dev here on Thursday.

While the Distance Education Council (DEC) has given its approval for BBM and BCA courses, the university is awaiting clearance to offer Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Computer Applications (MCA) courses under the distance education stream. The syllabi for BBM and BCA have been approved by the university under the semester scheme.

Offering new courses was also aimed at generating more revenue for the university. While the university gets around Rs. 9 crore through distance education courses, the expenditure, including printing of study material and organising examinations, comes to around Rs. 6 crore, Mr. Singh said.

Stating that the expansion of distance education was the only option to earn more revenue, he said that the university was unable to increase tuition fee for regular courses.

Though the university is facing a revenue deficit of Rs. 6 crore, it has to fund the construction of four more hostel buildings at a cost of Rs. 12 crore, he added.

Meanwhile, the Syndicate has approved the appointment of a special officer for the Directorate who will work under the Director to conduct examinations.

Hostels

The Syndicate approved constituting a hostel management council to oversee administration and upkeep of 12 hostels being run by the university. The council will be headed by P.S. Jayaramu, Dean of Faculty of Arts, while Narendra Kumar, Professor, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, whose appointment the Syndicate approved on Thursday as the Director of Student Welfare, will be its member secretary by virtue of his holding the post.

Two members of the Syndicate, the Special Officer, SC/ST Cell and wardens of all the hostels will be the members of the Council, which will oversee the running of the hostels.

Mr. Singh said the wardens of hostels were under pressure while discharging the work and hence the setting up of the Council.

Some of the other decisions the Syndicate took were enhancing the honorarium to guest faculty from Rs. 250 per lecture to Rs. 350; inspection of 32 law colleges coming under university by LICs and continuing the affiliation in eligible cases till the proposed Karnataka State Law University in Hubli comes into being; offering year certificate courses in Russian and Finnish languages; one year diploma in Russian and Chinese languages; one year higher diploma in Korean language; one year postgraduate diploma in tourism; one year diploma in Sanskrit (regular and external) instead of PG diploma in Sanskrit and MA Music (Mridangam) from the academic year 2010-11.