The Bangalore University has decided to close down postgraduate (PG) courses with an enrolment of less than 10 students.
Following the decision taken in the recent Syndicate meeting, the university has closed down three PG courses for the academic year of 2025-26: Molecular Biology, Solid Waste Management and Disaster Management.
Jayakara S.M., Vice-Chancellor of the university, said, 鈥淭he majority of departments have guest faculties and there is no question of shifting those faculties to other departments.鈥
Regarding the conventional PG courses in Arts subjects like Sanskrit, Urdu, among others, the Vice-Chancellor said that the admissions to these courses have seen an improvement in the last two years. 鈥淎s per the decision taken in the Syndicate, we will decide about continuing the course after scrutinising the applications. If the applications are less than 10, we will take a call,鈥 he explained.
鈥淭he university is already suffering financially. When this is the case, what is the need to nurture courses that have lost demand? If we retain the departments, we need to cater even if we get a single admission and pay the salary and provide infrastructure,鈥 said a senior official of the university.
Meanwhile, the faculty members suggested that the university should freeze admissions instead of closing the course. There are over 52 postgraduate departments in the university, of which some lack demand, with single-digit admissions, and some receive applications three times more than the seats available.
It can be recalled that the university had constituted a Syndicate subcommittee to decide on the closure of the courses which were not in demand in the year 2017-18.
As per the details available, some of the PG programmes which have lost demand gradually are: Sanskrit, Telugu, Audiology, Speech and Language, Hindi, Corporate communication, Constitution and administration, Labour employment, International Business, Urdu, Dance, Music, Geographical Information, and Life Science.