Common academic calendar of events impractical: College mgmts

Mangaluru: The faculty, officials and college managements under Mangalore University are unhappy with the common academic calendar of events that was released by the Karnataka State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) a few days ago. They have termed it ‘highly impractical’.
According to KSHEC, all state universities have to follow the common academic calendar starting this academic year for first-year UG classes. However, college managements point out that there are a lot of practical difficulties in adopting the same.
As per the common calendar, first semester UG classes should commence on July 17. At MU, the ongoing semester ends only on July 14 and term examinations commence on July 18. “Even if MU decides to start first-year UG classes, the question of staff and classrooms arises. A majority of colleges under MU face the same issue. The same teaching staff will be busy conducting semester examinations and freshmen will be left with no classes. Besides, MU, or the department of collegiate education, does not provide extra staff. We have to manage with whatever is currently provided. Consequently, KSHEC’s circular on the common academic calendar is highly impractical for colleges under MU,” criticised the principal of a first-grade government college situated in Mangaluru city.
A senior lecturer at a first-grade government college pointed out that the current common academic calendar by KSHEC is applicable to only first-year UG programmes. “It is again an inconvenience. Suppose first-year UG classes start on July 17 and ends on November 18. For those students moving to the second year and above, classes will start at the latest by August-end. In such a scenario, MU has to conduct exams twice, once for first-year UG candidates and another for the rest of them. This is again a burden for MU to conduct two exams in one semester. Rather, the academic calendar should be designed in such a way that all semesters start and end together,” the lecturer suggested.
Last academic year, the university tried to start offline classes for first-year students when examinations were on for other semester students. However, they had to shift to online mode as there was a dearth of classes and teaching hands.