Nine out of 11 BEd and MEd colleges, blacklisted by Bangalore University (BU), were allegedly allowed to conduct practical examinations on last Friday. The university had recently blacklisted these colleges for lack of infrastructure and sub-standard quality of education.
In a mail sent to the media, chairman of the university’s Task Force Committee on Teacher Education H Karan Kumar said, “At the last minute (as late as September 21), without following process of admission or verifying admission records of the students or informing the Academic Council or the Task Force formed to check both BEd and MEd programmes, nine of the 11 blacklisted colleges were allowed to conduct practical examination by the Registrar (Evaluation) R K Somashekar and chairperson of Board of Examination for BEd courses Roopamala Koneri.”
It may be recalled that these colleges were allowed to conduct the semester exams in May. “Now in September, ignoring all norms, all these colleges are conducting their second semester (practical exams). If this obnoxious trend continues, they may well complete their second semester theory exams in November,” he said.
According to Karan Kumar, the blacklisted colleges have neither the affiliation of the university nor the approval of statutory bodies like the Academic Council or Syndicate for the academic year 2011-12.
Registrar (Evaluation) R K Somashekhar was not available for comments. However, Registrar (Administration) B C Mylarappa justified the move.
“When we have already allowed the colleges to take the exam once, we do not have to give special permission to hold the practical examinations,” he said.
The blacklisted colleges are St Joseph College of Education, Regency College of Education, Huliappa Mallamma BEd College, Smt Manjula Mallesh College of Education, Jnana Vikas College of Education, Rajiv Gandhi College of Education, Bangalore City College of Education, Amitha BEd College and Unity College of Education.
Meanwhile, the Task Force will soon submit its report on 113 teacher education colleges to the varsity for Further Needful Action (FNA).