LUCKNOW: For the first time in its century-old history, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is set to open its Arts and Social Science faculties to women students.
Currently, all but these two faculties of BHU are coed. That lacuna will close when counselling for the new academic session (2017-18) begins Tuesday. Girl students will be admitted into 12 departments in Arts and Humanities -- Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Bengali, Education, English, Geography, Hindi, History of Arts, Physical Education, Sanskrit, Urdu and Philosophy; and 5 departments of social sciences -- Economics, History, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology.
Surprisingly, Arts is the oldest faculty at BHU and escaped being made coed. Women students had a college to themselves on the BHU campus – the Mahila Maha Vidyalaya, established in 1929.
Deans Kumar Pankaj of the faculty of Arts and Manjeet Chaturvedi of the faculty of Social Sciences are busy preparing for counseling commencing from Tuesday. Prof. Pankaj said there are 614 seats on offer in his faculty.
The renowned BHU’s new academic session commenced Monday with a rudrabhishek ritual at the Vishwanath temple on campus. Admission counselling admission will start Tuesday.