BHUBANESWAR: Utkal University’s B Sc in Nursing has less than 10 students in the current batch (2021-22) against the strength of 45. None has attended a clinical training session yet. Admission for the academic year 2022-23 has been put on hold for the programme being run from a rented accommodation near the university’s rural campus at Chandikhol since 2019.
There are 90 more students who have taken admission in the previous two batches and now stare at uncertainty due to poor management by the private agency that runs the self-financing course (SFC) in public private partnership (PPP) mode in collaboration with the Utkal University. For their plight, the students have blamed the university which claims to have sent a legal notice to the private organisation a fortnight back. VC Sabita Acharya said all steps are being taken to ensure that the nursing students face no problems in finishing their course.
And it is not Utkal University alone, many other public universities and degree colleges are accused of closing their eyes to the quality of education being imparted in the name of SFCs which apparently drew attention of the Chancellor of Universities and Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal’s office that sought streamlining and a cap on admission from next session. The order was first put to implementation by Higher Education department before being rolled back. The SFCs are today being offered in both direct and PPP mode in almost all the autonomous colleges and universities. Except for a few, many institutions lack adequate faculty which impact teaching, examinations and placements as well.
Of the 12 State-run universities, SFCs (master courses) are being offered in direct mode by all except the three new ones - Kalahandi University, Rajendra University and Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanjadeo University. Utkal University offers three SFCs in PPP mode – BSc in Nursing (Chandikhole rural campus); PG in Agri-business management in the department of Business Administration and MTech in computer science under the Statistics department in Bhubaneswar campus.
The course fees range between `75,000 and `2 lakh per annum and are expensive in comparison to similar courses offered in direct mode at other universities. The 4-year nursing course is run by a Bhubaneswar-based organisation SUHCET with `75,000 fees per annum. And it shares a 60:40 revenue ratio with the university.
“It is the university that had organised the entrance examination for the first batch and those selected were later told that the course would be run in self-financing mode. The private organisation took a house on rent and began offering the course with just two teachers against the sanctioned strength of six. There is no lab and no regular classes are held till date, forget clinical training. Only one examination has been held so far,” said a nursing student of the first batch requesting anonymity.
While all other universities are holding SFCs in direct mode, many do not have adequate faculty members to run the courses and holding examinations on time. Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanjadeo, Ravenshaw and Utkal universities run the highest 14, 10 and 7 SFCs respectively in the direct mode.
Revenue Arrangement
The SFCs in direct mode are entirely run by host departments of a university. Under PPP mode, an MoU is signed between a private organisation that runs the course on a 70:30 or 60:40 revenue sharing with the university concerned. Under PPP mode, the university only provides infrastructure on its campus while the private party takes care of curriculum, faculty, examination and other aspects of the course. Authorities of universities said public-funded higher education institutions cannot do without SFCs as revenue from regular courses does not suffice in development of the institutions.
“The funds provided by the State government on ‘non-plan’ head to a university are used for meeting recurring expenses like payment of wages, salaries and pensions. Then there are UGC and other Central grants for research. SFCs contribute significantly to the funds received by a university from other than government sources which are used for development work,” said a member of Utkal University’s academic council. He added that SFCs’ contribution to total receipts from non-government sources for Utkal varies between 40 pc to 60 pc.
Academician Pritish Chandra Acharya pointed out that not every SFC is problematic but many of them have become sources of commercialising education. “As far as faculty members are concerned, many experienced regular teachers devote their time to SFCs since they are paid much more as compared to the normal classes. This affects teaching for the regular courses. Since SFCs involve more course fees, students of these courses are paid more attention than the regular students,” he added. Although every university and college has a monitoring panel which includes the head of the institution as its member to oversee operations of SFCs, the exercise is rarely done.