No fresh MBA courses, rules Pune varsity

PUNE, Dec 8: The University of Pune has frozen the granting of permission to the new Master of Business Administration (MBA) course in th...

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PUNE, Dec 8: The University of Pune has frozen the granting of permission to the new Master of Business Administration (MBA) course in the colleges taking into consideration a sharp decline in the popularity of the course.

The decision was taken during the meeting of the management council held yesterday when five fresh proposals for starting MBA course came up for discussion before the council.

Setting aside the proposals, the council unanimously decided to freeze further permission for the course. This year, a whopping number of 150 seats for the course fell vacant in the university after the first round of entrance test.

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In an attempt to manage the crisis, the university conducted a second round of tests which saw little improvement as 70 seats still did not find any takers.

Pro-vice-chancellor Dr N J Sonawane told media persons that the decision was taken against the backdrop of sharp decline in the number of students opting for the MBA course. “We already have sufficient number of seats for the course. With so many seats lying vacant, the council thought that it totally unnecessary to give permission to fresh colleges,” Sonawane said.

Sonawane said the Chancellor P C Alexander and renowned scientist and scientific advisor to the Defence Ministry A P J Adbul Kalam will be the chief guests for the convocation ceremony on January 5. He said efforts were on to invite President K R Narayanan to unveil the statue of Chhattrapati Shivaji at university campus at a function on February 10.

Among the important issues on the agenda, the council discussed the proposals for setting up new colleges in various streams including law, architecture, education and physical education.Ten out of 51 proposals for new colleges in Arts, Commerce and Science streams were recommended by the council. The council also cleared all the three proposals for starting three new fine arts college in the university jurisdiction.

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Two proposals of law college and one of architecture was given a go-ahead during the meeting. However, all the five proposals of new Bachelor of Education (BEd) colleges were turned down by the council on grounds of sufficient number of existing seats for the course in the university.All the approved proposals will now be forwarded to the State Government. The last date of submitting the recommendations to the State is December 31.