LU gets thumb down from toppers

Updated on: Monday, July 11, 2011

What is common between Eti Agarwal, Prashansa Chowdhary and Gyan Prakash? While. Eti and Prashansa topped Class XII boards in ISC and CBSE respectively, Gyan is UP Board's Class XII topper. However, there is another common thing among the three toppers. All of them are not pursuing any course from the Lucknow University and feel that LU is losing its charm.

Eti topped Lucknow University's list of candidates selected for BCom, but she preferred to take admission in Sri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi. Similarly, Prashansa Chowdhary, city's top scorer in Class XII (CBSE) had also shown interest in pursuing honours course in economics from Delhi University. UP board topper Gyan Prakash is going to Kota to prepare for engineering, so that he does not miss on IITs next year.

Giving weightage to Delhi over Lucknow, Eti said, "There is no comparison, when it comes to standard of teaching at Delhi University. Studying in DU gives better exposure to the students and ensures all round development."

Endorsing her views, Prashansa said, "There is nothing that can match brand DU. Also, there is no college in Lucknow, which offers honours in economics."

Other students with a good rank who opt to stay in Lucknow joined National PG College. The top ranker at NPGC for BCom entrance test, Himani Srivastava said, "In the city, National College stands best. Lucknow University cannot be compared, when it comes to academics and infrastructure." Her friend who secured second rank in BCom entrance test at NPGC also echoed the same words.

Looking at this year's counselling at LU, university officials had to open the second waiting list to fill up seats. Be it professional courses such as Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Management Sciences (BMS) or even regular BCom, university was forced to admit students with lesser merit, as high rankers preferred to stay out of LU. In BCom alone, more than 100 candidates were called from second waiting list, which is a clear indication of university losing on good students. As a result, large number of students with poor academics is filling the space.

The varsity's gradual decline has many reasons. Agreeing on varsity's slow decay, head, department of sociology, LU Prof Rajesh Mishra said, "The choice of students in recent years has shifted. They no more want to stick to regular BA or BCom. They rather opt for technology or management courses. The first preference of meritorious students is Delhi. This is largely because mobility over the years has become easy."

Another university teacher reasoned that admission policies in the state are enough to demoralise meritorious students. "The benefit of zero fees is unfair. It might be state government's effort to assist low income group students, but it's unequal," he said.

Sudhir Kumar, a science faculty at LU said, "University has failed to design professional courses as per employment and industry needs. The syllabus and laboratory are never upgraded to suit the present requirement. Moreover, the grants received by state government under Centre for Excellence scheme is utilised in research, instead of teaching infrastructure."

When asked to comment, university spokesperson, Prof SK Dwivedi denied that university is lagging behind. "The university has best of faculty than any other college in the city. National PG College is like an intermediate school and percentage of girls is relatively higher. Therefore the results are good," he said. Regarding lower merit students taking admission in LU, Dwivedi said, "There are many factors, which could have obstructed high rankers to attend counselling. University cannot wait for them and hence went ahead with the admission process."

Times of India

LU gets thumb down from toppers

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