The University Grants Commission (UGC) would lay emphasis on restructuring undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the 10th plan period to ensure that academic training was employment-oriented.‘‘Courses which create unemployable graduates will have to be scrapped,’’ B H Briz Kishore, the convenor of a UGC Expert Committee which was here to review the performance of the Madras University, told reporters here today. According to him, the UGC was working on a war-footing to build a nationwide policy to restructure the courses offered by varsities by March. However, no structural changes would be made and the present 10+2+3 system would continue to remain in vogue. But the thrust will be on providing ‘‘employable mutli-disciplinary courses.’’Elaborating, he said, over the years one major change that has taken place was that the number of Departments in universities had multiplied. For instance, the Madras University had 65 Departments. However, most of them merely offered ‘‘air-tight compartmental degree programmes.’’ Students were asked to either choose for a post graduate degree in journalism or mass communication or visual media. ‘‘Instead, the university could offer one compositive Multimedia programme so that students emerge as complete learners when they pass out,’’ he said.Similarly, organic chemistry, industrial chemistry and the like can be clubbed to create a Composte Chemistry course that would help the younger generation find employment easily. ‘‘We want to remove the barriers of airtight compartments of science, management and engineering educations,’’ the Committee convenor said.Likewise, the UGC wants to do away with Departments that catered to just two or three pupils. If Anthropology has no takers, it would be wise to merge it with some other Department. Nonetheless, this would not in any way lead to the Heads of Departments losing their job, he said.Kishore said the efforts of the UGC to lay stress on vocational courses during the current ninth plan came a cropper.Meanwhile, the Madras University Vice-Chancellor S Ignacimuthu briefed the visiting team about the efforts taken in the last six months to supplement the UGC’s vision for the 10th plan period.Flexible education structures were evolved in recent months at the varsity to enable students to pursue electives and supportive courses outside their main course. ‘‘Such an approach gave the science students an opportunity to gain some credits in arts and humanities and vice-versa,’’ the Vice-Chancellor said.
