MANGALURU: With no student showing interest to join BA courses in the academic year 2026-27, three government colleges affiliated to Mangalore University have dropped their plans to start new batches. It was decided during the first academic council meeting of the year held on Monday.
Vice-Chancellor Prof PL Dharma, who presided over the meeting, said that following a state government order, Government First-Grade College at Kavoor in Mangaluru will not start new BA batches for Economics, History and Sociology, Journalism and Kannada this year. While the Government first-grade college at Punjalakatte will drop the BA programme in Economics, Kannada and Sociology, the Dr G Shankar Govt Women’s First-Grade College and PG Study Centre at Ajjarakadu, Udupi, will drop new batches in English, History and Political Science.
Meanwhile, approval has been given to start new programmes, including BCom with Banking Financial Services and Insurance, BCom with Human Resource Operations, BCom with Logistics and BSc programmes, in three government first grade colleges at Uppinangady, Punjalkatte and Puttur. Approval has also been given to increase the intake of students for BCom and BBA courses in two first grade colleges at Mudipu and Haleangadi.
The VC suggested that at a time when natural disasters such as massive earthquakes, landslides, floods and tsunami are increasingly occurring across the world, there is a need to educate the students on disaster management. Dharma also suggested including a course on disaster management to open elective students.
While discussing an agenda on revised syllabus for science and technology-related programmes, the VC suggested the department heads include courses on the global food crisis. “Not only food quality and technology, we need to make the students aware how we can address food shortage,” he said.