A section of academics in the State has raised concerns about the Kerala Higher Education department’s plan to launch four-year undergraduate degree courses in all State universities from the next academic year without proper preparations and upgrading of the current infrastructure.
The Confederation of Kerala College Teachers (CKCT), an organisation affiliated to the Indian Union Muslim League, is planning to raise these apprehensions before the government soon.
According to Jafar Odakkal, CKCT functionary, the proposal is silent about the running of postgraduate courses in the future. After four-year UG courses, the PG course duration can be reduced to one year. But there is no clarity on this so far. “These new programmes are supposed to offer higher academic flexibility to students and they will have the option to go for research after the third year. It remains to be seen how this is possible with the existing infrastructure and the structure of courses in colleges. Many government colleges don’t even have full-time principals now,” he points out. Also, teachers have not been trained and there is yet to be any proper communication between parents, students, and the academic community on this.
