Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU), the oldest and lone central university of Arunachal Pradesh, is all set to start several new courses from the coming academic session 2020-21.
As a part of its vision plan, the university under its present vice-chancellor Profesor Saket Kushwaha has recently roped in 46 faculty positions for starting departments of Agronomy and Farm Management and Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, a press release said on Thursday.
The other departments that the university would run courses on are Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Animal Husbandry, Entomology and Agricultural Zoology, Food Technology, Statistics and Law, the release said.
RGU joint registrar Dr David Pertin said besides the aforementioned courses, the approval for establishing a centre of sports science education and research under Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ scheme of National Centre of Sports Sciences and Research (NCSSR) has come as a big boon for the university.
“Bagging the honour to establish the sports science center is a big score for RGU as such elite establishment will be the first of its kind in the entire northeast,” Dr Pertin said.
The faculty positions at the ratio of 1:2:4 for professors, associate professors and assistant professors is being pursued from the relevant agencies, he said.
The joint registrar informed that the university has in this regard already constituted a registrar led eight-member team to execute the establishment and soon a report on the same will be tabled in the academic council meeting for clearance.
In the backdrop of these welcoming developments, vice-chancellor Kushwaha said, “Apart from the new introductions, the university has to continue to strive to improve the quality of education in all the ongoing programmes.”
Special emphasis will have to be given on vocational courses, where there is still a huge scope of improvement, he said.
Kushwaha said bringing improvement in the academic scenario especially job oriented courses is the need of the hour.
The students must be trained in a way that they are able to grab jobs once they clear their courses, he added.
Kushwaha further said that both conventional and new courses will be introduced by the university from time to time as per the need and relevancy.
“In this line, a few post-graduate courses that are proposed to be introduced from the next academic session include PG in music, fine arts and geology,” he said.
The RGU had last year introduced MA course in Tribal Studies and Defense and Strategic Studies in AITS & NSS respectively.
With the introduction of the two courses, RGU became the first varsity in the country to offer Masters courses in tribal studies and found its name amongst the very few universities and centres offering Post-Graduate programmes in defense and strategic studies subject.