JNU to offer engineering and management courses, UGC nod pending

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) proposes to offer engineering and management courses, an initiative the University Grants Commission is said to be considering.

If approved, the university will take students for these subjects from 2018.

The New Delhi-based premier institution, established in 1969, is known for its arts and humanities subjects. JNU wants to expand its programme to engineering and management, for which officials submitted a proposal and made a presentation to the country’s university regulator, UGC.

The government-run university can’t start new courses without the UGC’s clearance as these involve fresh or enhanced funding to hire faculty, build infrastructure, and other miscellaneous and recurring expenses.

Sources said a decision will be taken soon and communicated to the university.

The university is likely to start with a bachelor in engineering programme. The management course is still being worked out.

“All the central universities, including JNU, have submitted plans for the next year … All proposals will be studied before a decision,” a senior human resource development ministry official said.

JNU won the annual Visitor’s Award for best university in 2017, which was instituted by the government three years ago to encourage healthy competition among central universities.

More than 7,000 students study in the university’s graduate, postgraduate and PhD programmes.

JNU has schools of social sciences, international relations, arts and aesthetics, environment science among others.

Academics apart, the university has been in the limelight since last February when three of its students were charged with sedition and arrested after a campus event in which anti-national slogans were allegedly heard.

 
[“source-hindustantimes”]