education

Updated: Aug 23, 2017 07:49 IST

Though not proficient in English, Rajesh Kumar (name changed) wished to be an engineer. His eyes lit up when the Madhya Pradesh government started engineering courses in Hindi at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi University of Bhopal and Kumar was one of the first students to enrol last year.

A year later, Kumar’s hopes of becoming an engineer lie in tatters. The concept of learning engineering in Hindi has not caught on and the university is on the verge of shutting down engineering courses for the want of students and also infrastructure.

In its year of inception, only four students took admission for the three engineering courses offered by the university. This year, no students have taken admission, leaving the engineering faculty with just 11 students, including seven diploma holders who have taken lateral admissions into the second year of the engineering courses.

The three engineering courses offered at the university incidentally have 180 seats.

The lack of students’ response has put the university authorities in a bind, prompting them to wonder whether the courses should be abandoned.

While in its year of inception only four students took admission for the three courses, there were no takers this year.

“The concept is very good, but due to want of awareness, people don’t understand it well. I don’t think we should continue the course. Spending crores of rupees in developing infrastructure, constructing 20 classes and appointing 20 teachers for just a few students don’t appear feasible,” said Ramdev Bhardwaj, the university’s newly appointed vice-chancellor.

“The university academic council will soon sit to decide whether we should continue running the courses or not,” Bhardwaj added.

When established, the university had lofty objectives, including developing engineers who would contribute to the development of the state as well as their country. The university had also written to various IITs last year that it was ready to enrol students who were struggling to learn engineering in English at their institutes.

Learning engineering in Hindi, however, is proving to be an extremely daunting task. Text books on engineering subjects are rare and teachers rarer. The university currently has around four ad-hoc teachers and not a single permanent engineering teacher.

However, the engineering department staff feels the courses should not be discontinued in a huff. For, any new concept takes years to bloom, they say.

“Without a good infrastructure and faculty, the university should not expect good enrolment of students,” said an administrator in the engineering department who didn’t wish to be named.

The Madhya Pradesh government, however, has left it to the university authorities to take a call.

“Now, Atal Bihari Vajpayee University is an autonomous body and they can take their decision on their own,” said the minister of state for technical education minister, Deepak Joshi.