In a first, students of Osmania University and its affiliated colleges will be able to challenge any answer they feel they have not been appropriately marked for, and get their answer scripts re-evaulated.
Addressing the Academic Senate at the Senate Hall in the Administrative Building on Saturday, vice chancellor S Ramchandram said, “Until now students were given photocopies of their answer scripts. They could not appeal for re-evaluation if they were not satisfied or even if their right answers had been marked wrong. From now on we have decided to allow students to see their original paper and even challenge it.”
In addition, the varsity has also decided to reinstate the MSc in Hospital Management course that was removed a few years ago. The VC said that in view of the job opportunities that the course offers, the varsity had decided to restart the course from 2018-19 session onwards.
During the Senate meeting, OU also released its financial budget. It stated that despite a block grant allocation of `309.54 crore by the government, it is facing a deficit of `63.18 crore, with the total expenditure coming up to `686.77 crore. The University Budget released by Prof Nageshwar Rao, Dean, Faculty of Management, said, “Even after pooling all the available resources we are facing a shortfall of `63.18 crore.
The University will seek more funding from the government.” The 98th Annual Budget also revealed that for the financial year 2018-19, in addition to the restoration and maintenance works, new residential buildings for VC and registrar would be constructed.
A new academic block worth `40 crore is also on the cards. In addition, construction of new buildings for UFRO, Model High School and Nizamia Observatory will be undertaken at a cost of `30.5 crore. Meanwhile, `10 crore will be spent on infrastructure related works at Arts and Science College.
Meanwhile, BR Ambedkar Research Centre, Innovation and Incubation Centre and Centre for Telangana Studies on the OU campus found a mention under the “works to be taken up’ section of the budget, albeit with no allocation.
Recounting its achievements for the 2016-17 year, Prof T Vijay Kumar, head of Department of English, said that the number of NET qualifiers from the University had increased considerably, from 48 to 194. He added that during the said period, the State varsity has fallen in the NIRF scoring from 65.4 to 45.5. However, it has climbed 10 places in the rankings from 33 to 23. #KhabarLive
