BU’s distance education study centres to continue operations

Coimbatore: Former vice-chancellor of Madras University S P Thyagarajan has been selected as the syndicate nominee for the vice-chancellor search committee of the Bharathiar University. He was selected unanimously at the syndicate meeting held in Chennai on Wednesday.
Sources from the syndicate said there was no election to select a nominee as the syndicate members had unanimously agreed to nominate Thyagarajan as the VC search committee nominee.

Thyagarajan is the second member of the VC search committee after former vice-chancellor of Tamil University C Subramaniam was selected by the senate.

Governor Banwarilal Purohit would nominate another member for the three-member search panel. The term of suspended vice-chancellor A Ganapathi ends in March.

In the meeting, the syndicate has also decided to allow study centres, centres for participatory programmes (CPP) and centre for collaboration of industry and institution, which offer the university’s distance education courses, operate till the students who were admitted in 2018-2019 complete the courses.

Though the special syndicate meeting was convened to select a VC search committee nominee, the university had added this in the agenda.

A source from the syndicate said, “But they can’t admit students in the coming academic year.”

The move has created a controversy as the university had in May asked the centres to close operations immediately. The university, in a communication to the centres on May 18 had said ‘no private franchise in any form be entertained within the state of Tamil Nadu as study centres of Bharathiar University – School of Distance Education from the academic year 2018-2019 onward’.

It had said as some private franchises were conducting admissions this year (2018-2019), the resolution had to be acted upon immediately.

However, in a communication to the principal secretary of the higher education department, ahead of the syndicate meeting, registrar in charge of the university B Vanitha had said while the university had sent the circular in May, several centres had completed their admission process earlier as they had to start the academic batch from May/June.

The communication sought to consider the agenda to avoid contempt proceedings against the university. It said the Madras HC had earlier ruled that the university allow the centres to admit students, as 65 centres had contested the university’s circular.