RGUHS says no to new council

The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Science (RGUHS) has decried the recommendation for creating a National Council for Human Resources in Health (NCHRH) and scrapping the Medical Council of India (MCI) owing to corruption and other deficiencies, made by a national task force which went into the issue.

According to sources in the medical education department, the RGUHS has in a report to the Union government, strongly backed the MCI, arguing that its performance is satisfactory and the task force’s suggestion to set up the NCHRH in its place is “not in tune with the present day concept of decentralisation”.

While RGUHS agreed there were several problems with agencies overseeing medical education in the country, it felt they should be retained in the interest of maintaining high standards. “The establishment of NCHRH will undermine the autonomy of the MCI and other apex bodies which have undoubtedly brought appreciable changes in the health scenario,” the state medical varsity said.

“It is difficult to even imagine how a council with five members only will be able to guide and oversee all the faculties of over 1,000 health professional institutions,” it added. RGUHS also opposed the task force’s recommendation that professionals who have received medical-health related training from NCHRH accredited non- academic institutions, should be permitted to appear for PG programmes at the university level and obtain MD/MS degrees, saying this could dilute the quality of working professionals in the field.

Member of the task force, Dr Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya, refused to comment on the stand taken by RGUHS saying, “our job is only to submit reports”.

A senior officer of the medical education department, however felt that RGUHS vice-chancellor Dr S. Ramananda Shetty should be held accountable for the institute’s defence of the MCI.

“To the best of our knowledge most rural areas of the state still do not have access to good doctors and the MCI is to blame,” he said.

Hi-tech copycat used device inside his shirt

He would wear the same shirt every day to the exam. Not because it was his lucky shirt. He would always pull the collar up. Not because it was the latest fashion. This student, Arun (name changed), had a speaker and wires tucked away in his shirt — to help him copy. He would receive and transmit information through the device. Arun and two other final year MBBS students who resorted to hi-tech copying have been caught.

Arun, a repeater, was writing part-I ophthalmology paper at J N Medical College in Belgaum in December. When the invigilators quizzed him on wearing the same shirt, he would reply: “It’s my lucky shirt.”

“He would never fold his collar and would always pull the collar near his mouth. This kind of unusual behaviour drew the attention of the invigilators,” S Vasantha Kumar, registrar, RGUHS, told TOI. “His shirt does not raise suspicion. But when we frisked him, we found batteries inside the shirt and when we folded collar, we found something hard. We tore the collar, and found wires and a speaker,” Kumar explained. The malpractice committee, which met last week, decided to debar all the students.

Eight dental students caught while copying

It was exam time and some students were busy chewing when the checking squad entered the hall. The moment the squad left, they spat out. No, they were not angry. They spat out the chits on which they had written the answers.

This incident happened at KGF College of Dental Science on Wednesday. A total of 33 students were writing the dental pharmacology exam (II BDS); human physiology and biochemistry (I BDS) and anatomy exam (I BDS).

Eight students were caught red-handed. In a swift move, the RGUHS (Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences) cancelled the exam centre. S Vasantha Kumar, registrar of the university, said: "All the students scheduled to take the exam in this centre have been directed to appear at the Devaraj Urs Medical College, Kolar, for the next examination."

The RGUHS was tipped off on Monday about mass copying at the dental college. Not taking any chances, the university officials immediately constituted a two-member committee comprising A G Prathab, associate professor (microbiology), M S Ramaiah Medical College, and B J Mahendra, professor and HoD (community medicine), Mandya Institute of Medical Science, on Tuesday.

"We caught eight students red-handed and left the hall. But when we came back, we saw heaps of chits in a corner of the hall. We were shocked. When we examined the chits, we found they were chewed by the students and were still moist. Worse, on the ground floor, we found a lot of study material,” Prathab said.

The chits of the eight students along with their answerscripts, study material and other chits too were confiscated. The members have taken the recording from the CCTV.

Revamp RGUHS, governor tells govt

Miffed by the spate of scams in the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), governor T N Chaturvedi has sought a complete revamp of the functioning of the university.

Chaturvedi, also chancellor of universities, has not only sought a periodical review of the functioning, but also wants the statutes and rules governing the university to be amended to improve functioning.

The state government has now constituted a committee, headed by former RGUHS V-C S Chandrasekhara Shetty, to examine the present structural set-up of the university.

The committee, constituted last week, will suggest amendments to the provisions of the existing Act and recommend inclusion of new provisions. It will also recommend the setting up of a review commission to study the functioning of the university periodically.

The other members of the committee are C M Gurumurthy, former special officer for establishment of RGUHS, Dr K S Nagesh, principal RV dental college, Dr K P Puttaraya, consultant R&D (RGUHS) and S R Kanakaraj, former university registrar.

The panel has been asked to submit its report within three months. In his letter to the government, the chancellor said: Section 71 of the Karnataka State Universities Act 2000 provides for appointment of a review commission into the working of the university.

There is no such provision in respect of other universities, hence it has not been possible to review their functioning.

Since there have been a number of petitions regarding malpractices in some of the universities, it is necessary to have a review commission comprising administrative and academic experts in respect of RGUHS.

Admission tangle ends, students rejoice

In a significant verdict that will have far-reaching implications on the status of deemed universities, the high court has held these universities are bound by University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines with respect to admissions as they have statutory force. With this path-breaking judgment, the 32 students caught in an admission tangle can heave a sigh of relief, what with barely 24 hours left for admissions to close.

"Having acquired the status of a deemed university -- after giving an undertaking and signing an MoU that they would surrender 25% of seats to the state government when obtaining an NOC -- they cannot contend that those conditions on which they were accorded recognition are bad in law and cannot be enforced. They cannot take a U-turn and challenge the very same undertaking as well as the UGC Act's regulations, which had given them deemed status. According to UGC guidelines, the institution should follow the state policy," the special Bench comprising Justice V Gopala Gowda and Justice K Bhakthavatsala observed, after quoting and analyzing various apex court judgments, including the Inamdar case, in their order.

Nitte not yet a university

"As per records made available, Nitte is not yet disaffiliated from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Science (RGUHS). They are not yet a university. They are only a private professional college. They are governed by Rule 2(l), relating to government seats. All such colleges are governed by consensual agreement on seat sharing. The prayer in their petition is untenable. It is luxurious litigation," the Bench strongly observed while dismissing the petitions filed by both the Universities

The court held that all excess admissions made by the two medical colleges run by Nitte and Yenepoya Universities are bad in law. The court also directed the two institutions to make over the excess admissions of this year above their 75-seat management quota to the KEA quota for the year 2010-11. As per these, 13 seats in Nitte and five in Yenepoya would now go to the state government.

Meanwhile the three-judge Bench of the apex court headed by Justice B N Agarwal will hear the SLPs filed by MCI and Nitte Universities against the August 19 interim order passed by the high court on Wednesday. On September 2, the Bench had stayed the HC's earlier order.

The MCI has alleged that the Karnataka high court's order was nothing but allowing excess admission, which is not permissible as per various orders, passed by the apex court.

On August 19, the high court had directed the KEA to accommodate all students including the 47 allottees who were turned away by the two deemed universities.

Both universities contended that as per the guidelines, the NOC they obtained had no value or bearing and it is the central government which is the competent authority in the matter.

However, the state government had told the court that these two colleges had voluntarily surrendered 25% of their quota while seeking an NOC and have made made admissions in both UG and PG categories.

Apart from this, these two colleges also have been notified in the February 5 notification regarding CET.

It was no classroom

They were waiting for weeks together. On Tuesday, some of the students were in the court right from 11.30 am, anxiously waiting for the judgment. When the dictating order process started, the tension ran high. It was about 5 pm in the evening when the court ultimately passed an order in their favour; and they couldn't hide their glee. They clapped with relief. But the division Bench didn't appreciate it. "Is this a classroom?" asked Justice V Gopala Gowda, and it was followed by pin-drop silence.

HC okays CoD inquiry against KPTCL official

The High Court on Wednesday upheld the government’s decision to conduct a CoD inquiry into the alleged irregularities by K P Champakadhama Swamy, executive director of Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) Employees Co-operative society.


Disposing a petition filed by Swamy, Justice Anandabyrareddy handed over the case to CoD. The court directed CoD to submit the report to the court rather than to the government. On October 28, 2006, the registrar of co-operative societies had found Swamy guilty of the irregularities. In 2007, the High Grounds police had refused to register a complaint against Swamy as it was civil in nature. On February 1, 2008, the government directed the CoD to inquire into the matter.

CBI told to submit records The High Court has directed the CBI to submit the list of documents, statement of witnesses and list of evidences against former minister Krishnaiah Setty, who is facing charges of defrauding State Bank of Mysore (SBM) by availing a housing loan.

While hearing a criminal petition filed by Setty, Justice Subhash B Adi directed the CBI to submit relevant records pertaining to the former minister’s involvement in the cheating case.

Meanwhile, the counsel appearing for SBM submitted that the manager of the Gandhinagar branch of the bank had no powers to sanction housing loans above a limit of Rs 4 lakh.

The court adjourned the hearing to Thursday.

RGUHS asked to announce student’s results The High Court has directed the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Science (RGUHS) to announce the results of the final year exams of BDS student Karthikeyan Gokul Chandran, son of a senior IPS officer.

The petitioner told the court that on September 1, the governor had directed RGUHS to conduct re-examination for the petitioner, both in practical and viva, and had asked it to submit a report.

But the university had not announced the results after the exams.

HC extends interim order in Maverick case The High Court has extended the interim order directing BBMP not to precipitate the matter regarding construction of quarters for economically weaker sections at Ejipura in Bangalore.

While hearing a petition by Akruthi Nirman, a Mumbai-based company, Justice Venugopala Gowda extended the interim order regarding construction of the quarters.

The government had allotted the tender contract to Maverick Holdings Limited to construct the quarters.

However, Akruthi Nirman had challenged the same.

RGUHS election

The election to the Senate of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) from the constituency of Professors and teachers other than professors is scheduled on September 7. According to a RGUHS release, the last date for filing nomination is August 21. The polling will be held in 33 centres across the State. For details, log on to www.rguhs.ac.in, the release added.

Government hospitals known for bad maintenance

One may be easily mistaken by the serene look of government hospitals spread across the heart of the city. But make no mistake about it -- these government hospitals are known for bad maintenance. Name it. Toilets to corridors to balconies are dirty, unwashed and stinking.

Such a condition exists although the hospitals are adequately staffed, at least on the record. In reality, only ghostly figures exist in attendance registers.

Several employees in government hospitals are simply names on paper who are non-existent. Some simply draw salaries and never come to work.

The wage register at Vani Vilas Hospital for February and March shows 59 names of workers under the housekeeping section. But 21 of them don't exist. Salaries of imaginary employees are then regularly drawn by hospital officials and contractors.

The Unorganized Sector Labour Unit has filed a complaint with Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde, medical education secretary, dean and director of BMCRI, and vice-chancellor of RGUHS.

"Payment to contractors is based on the attendance register certified by the matron, resident medical officer and other hospital officials. Contractors have been misusing BMCRI funds for long," the unorganised sector labour union's president Prem Kumar told The Times of India.

According to the Minimum Wages Act, wages must be paid in presence of authorized hospital representatives and persons who can endorse that the minimum wage has been paid.

No government hospital TOI visited followed this rule. According to the Act, wages must be paid on working days before the 7th of every month. Sources, however, confirmed that wages are paid on second Saturdays or Sundays.

Existing staff and even hard-working employees find it difficult to work properly due to this racket. Some contract workers recruited for sweeping and cleaning are used as ward boys, kitchen attendants and labour ward cleaners. These complicated tasks are supposed to be handled by skilled, permanent hospital staff.

"We had 230 Group D posts sanctioned. Of this, 125 are outsourced and the rest (105 personnel) are permanent. I can't assure if all of them are working here. We've many supervisors in the hospital to look into each department. But we can launch an investigation only based on a complaint,"

Vani Vilas Hospital medical superintendent O S Siddappa told TOI. "You should ask BMCRI authorities are because they're in charge of recruiting contractors," Siddappa added.

"We've found deficiency in the workforce as well as deviation and violation in the contract. Last week, on receiving a bill from a contractor and finding misappropriation, we visited Vani Vilas Hospital and paid only those workers who were actually working at the hospital," said BMCRI dean and director G T Subhash.

"I've written to the medical superintendent to investigate the matter, and if need be, we will cancel the tender and blacklist the contractor," Subhash added.

Bifurcation will reduce load on RGUHS

Minister for Medical Education Ramachandre Gowda, on Monday said that the State cabinet will look into the bifurcation of the Rajiv Gandhi University for Health Sciences (RGUHS) to ease the administrative constraints arising from the large number of colleges under it. The minister also noted that the government was waiting for a response from the University’s Syndicate before proceeding with action against those found guilty of irregularities in evaluation of answer papers.

Responding to a query raised in the Legislative Council, the minister said that, the three-member committee which was constituted after large differences in marks were found in the first valuation and revaluation of the answer papers of the exams held in December 2008 and January 2009, has submitted its report.

The report has been sent to the RGUHS Syndicate to elicit its recommendation; the government is committed to taking action on the issue, he said.

The minister also clarified that the recent change in rules effected by its syndicate pertained to expanding the scope for re-valuation. In the wake of irregularities (as mentioned above) students needed to clear doubts if any and the rule was changed to help students applying for re-valuation.

Changes soon in RGUHS examination process: VC

• Electronic despatch of question papers to be introduced
• Committee set up to monitor erring evaluators
• University needs 5,000 more teachers
  

Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) S. Ramananda Shetty has said that RGUHS will now send question papers to colleges by email just minutes before examinations begin and tabulation of results will be done on computers and sent back to the university by email. The university had now introduced this system in postgraduate courses and it was a successful move. “We will soon introduce the system in undergraduate courses and manual entry of marks will stop,” he added.

Dr. Shetty claimed that RGUHS was the only university in the country which had formed a “professional misconduct committee” to monitor erring valuators.

Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, he recalled that in a particular case, one evaluator had given a student 14 marks for an answer, while the question itself was for only 10 marks. The university this year had debarred 17 such evaluators who were not professional. “We also blacklist evaluators and try not to invite them for evaluation work as far as possible,” he added.

Dr. Shetty said the university had also introduced a facility whereby a student could contest his evaluation process, by paying a prescribed fee of Rs. 5,000 per paper. A copy of the answer script would be sent for re-evaluation and if the candidate were to get more marks, the fees paid would be refunded.

Dr. Shetty said that over 650 institutions including those teaching medicine, nursing and alternative therapies would soon come under the purview of university. Of them, 50 per cent were nursing colleges (323). For nursing colleges, recognition from the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and the Karnataka Nursing Council (KNC) was mandatory. “Some colleges do not have INC permission to conduct courses. Students from these colleges will not be eligible for employment in places where recognition is mandatory. The RGUHS has sent such a list to the State Government requesting it not to admit students to these colleges,” he added.

On the relocation of the university to Ramanagara, Dr. Shetty said, “The Government promised to give us 300 acres of land. Now 142 acres has been acquired but farmers have gone to court seeking a stay on the acquisition of the remaining land. Once the land is fully acquired, we will shift to the new campus.”

He said the Central Committee for Indian Medicine wrote to the university last year asking the authorities not to admit students to 28 Ayurveda colleges in the State as they did not have any infrastructure. By then, the admissions were already over. The university wrote to the CCIM stating that the admissions were already over and hence they may be permitted to continue. As many as 1,400 students were admitted to these colleges.

Dr. Shetty said there were 18,000 teaching staff working in colleges, teaching medicine and alternative forms of therapy, but the university needed another 5,000. The number of postgraduate seats would also be increased, he added.

He said there would be no problems as far as fresh admissions to Government Medical Colleges in Hassan, Shimoga, Mandya, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum were concerned. The Medical Council of India would be meeting in Delhi on June 10 and would send renewal of recognition letters to the Karnataka Government. Seats in these colleges were available for the first round of counselling, he added.

Principal of SDM College of Ayurveda Prasanna N. Rao was present.

Four MBBS candidates tampered with answer booklets

A teacher correcting the answer script of an MBBS student, originally of the 1996-97 batch, was baffled. After failing to clear the exam till now, the candidate finally resorted to malpractice, a glaring one at that.

The student had not only copied every single word from a textbook, but also the punctuation marks. Moreover, investigation revealed a clear difference in handwriting in the internal assessment answer sheet and the university exam answer booklet.

The incident came to light in May when some candidates' answer scripts were sent for revaluation. The exam was conducted in January. Suspicious over the way the answers were worded, the valuator informed his principal, who lodged complaint with Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. The principal also sent documentary evidence for the doubts.

The university found the answer script came from a medical college
in Kolar. RGUHS confiscated the IA answer sheets in all subjects of the entire batch, suspecting there could be more than one such case. "When we went through the answer scripts we could clearly make out they were tampered with. We have found three more students tampered with the answer scripts," RGUHS registrar S Vasantha Kumar said.

The university constituted a fact-finding committee headed by MVJ Medical College dean Dr Rajeshwari. The panel submitted its report in the last week of May, concluding that there is prima facie evidence indicating malpractice. The report was placed before the syndicate in June, where it was resolved that criminal cases will be filed against the candidates.

3 Member Committee Submits Report on Lapses During Valuation

The three-member committee that was constituted to probe the lapses during valuation at Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) submitted the report to the state government recently.

The committee, which is led by director to Medical Education and university’s Syndicate member Dr Aruna submitted the report.

Even while the report was being submitted, the committed came under the eye of a storm.

According to university officials, it doesn’t make much of a sense to appoint a Syndicate member to conduct inquiry on the decision that was taken under syndicate members presence.

“Instead, a retired judge or academician should have been appointed,” an official said.

Why the committee?

The committee was constituted on June 6, following some students’ complaints over alleged goof-ups during valuation of exams conducted during December 2008 and January 2009.

Irregularities

Many irregularities are said to have crept during valuation.

The committee had reported that a dental student was awarded more marks than the maximum marks allotted. In few answer scripts, even though students have written answers, the valuators have mentioned that there is no answer.

In another case, a student got revaluation result in one day, while many students are waiting for their revaluation results for the past three months.

Committee’s recommendations

The Committee has recommended the state government to blacklist those valuators who involved in such malpractices.

Model answer scripts need to be issued.

The committee also recommended reduction in the revaluation fee from Rs 1,000 to Rs 500.

High Court quashes RGUHS VC’s order

The High Court on Wednesday quashed the order of Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University of Heath Science (RGUHS) amending the norms of challenge valuation.

However, the Court said the ordinance brought out by the University regarding the same subject can be made applicable from March.

Hearing a petition by Sumeeth Kumar and others, students of Dr B R Ambedkar medical college, Justice Mohan Shanthanagowdar directed the University to recalculate the total marks of the students instead of the marks awarded by the two separate evaluators (median value).

The court observed that the vice-chancellor had no power to pass such an order and his order is not sustainable. So the notification dated September 11, 2008 regarding the challenge valuation to arrive at the median value by the Vice Chancellor was unconstitutional, the court observed.

Procedure incorrect

The Court said, “The Vice Chancellor’s objective was in the wider interest of the students, but the procedure is not correct and the action is not in accordance with the law.”

The Court said it will not interfere with the policy decision of the university as it is in the domain of University for making policy, modifying and repelling if needed.

“As the order is not sustainable in the eye of the law, the order dated 11 September, 2008 is quashed. The University is directed to recalculate the marks secured by the petitioners in challenging the valuation, while an ordinance passed by the University on April 3, 2009 can be made applicable from March onwards.”

The counsel appearing for the students had argued that the students were awarded less mark in revaluation of the marks.

“The university did not consider the differences of minimum and maximum marks obtained by the students, but it had considered the median marks in the revaluation of the answer scripts,” the petitioner argued.

The petitioners had challenged the notification issued by the Vice Chancellor stating this process of valuation has given them less marks.

MINU director nominated to RGUHS Senate

The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences here has reconstituted its senate and syndicate, including the appointment of Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, Director of Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology (MINU), for a 3 year tenure starting June 12.

Speaking to the Express, Dr Ballal expressed his gratitude to the government for the nomination and expressed his concern for medical education in the state.

Criticising the inadequate number of PG seats for MBBS graduates, Dr Ballal said, “There is a lack of opportunity after MBBS. Young doctors are frustrated as there are very few PG seats available.” Dr Ballal appreciated the RGUHS' efforts in starting PG courses in areas like Emerg e n c y Medicine and Nephrology and hopes even more career opport u n i t i e s are created for MBBS graduates.

He admitted that owing to the duration of medical courses, the number of students taking up medicine as a profession has reduced.

“We need to change mindsets.

We must motivate talented students to become doctors because we need efficient professionals,” Dr Ballal added.

He recently became one of the few Indians to have been awarded an honorary FRCP without having worked or trained at a UK hospital. A graduate of the Kasturba Medical College, Dr Ballal set up MINU at Bangalore, which is credited with the first kidney transplant in the state.

According to a notice on the RGUHS website, other health professionals selected as senate members by RGUHS include Dr Girish Galagiri (MDS, Gulbarga), Dr T Jayanti (KIMS Bangalore), Dr KC Raju Reddy (Bangalore), Dr HS Ramya (KIMS Bangalore).

The Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor have also appointed six members amongst persons having special interest in Health Sciences.

These include Dr Sriprakash KS (MOH, Bangalore), Dr B C Bhagwan (KIMS, Bangalore), Dr Mohan Alva (Alva’s Education Foundation, Moodbidri), Dr Gurushankar (BMCRI, Bangalore), Dr Kamini Rao, (BACC, Bangalore), Dr M Srinivas (MMCRI, Mysore).

Midway quitting the course: referred to division Bench

Is a college management entitled to seek the entire course fee if a student leaves the course midway?

Rules and regulations don't have specific answer to this situation. Related to this issue, a single Bench has referred the case of a student to a division Bench.

Smruthi, who had been studying in R V Dental College for six months, has been told to by the court to deposit the balance course fee by way of a bank guarantee. Also, the court told the college management to return her marks cards and other documents.

The college's counsel cited a Supreme Court observation related to a case with Islamia Academy, in which the college management is entitled to take the full course fee.

The petitioner's advocate, however, said there is no specific law or regulation to deal with such a situation and Smruthi can leave the course if she doesn't wish to continue.

According to the student, she discontinued 1st-year BDS course due to non-availability of educational loan. She asked the college to return her original marks cards and other documents so that she can pursue her course elsewhere.

She stood 4,390 rank in CET in 2008-09 and failed to get an MBBS seat, after which she was allotted a BDS seat under the government quota. She has paid a fee of Rs 32,500.

HC stays amended RGUHS norms on revaluation

The high court has stayed amended norms brought out by RGUHS for computing marks in challenge valuation cases.

Justice Mohanashantana Gouar stayed the September 10, 2008, norms on petition filed Sumit Kumar, a first-year student of Dr Ambedkar Medical College.

The petitioner, who failed in anatomy and other subjects, had sought for revaluation.

He challenged the amended norms of taking the average of median of both general and challenge valuation marks, instead of average highest and lowest of general and challenge valuation marks, which was the practice earlier. He said he would have got passing marks had the earlier norms were applied.

In the old method, general valuation was done by four valuators. The highest and lowest marks in both general and challenged valuations were taken together and average marks were awarded.

But as per the amendment, instead of taking highest and lowest marks, median marks were taken into consideration.

Changes soon in RGUHS examination process: VC

Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) S. Ramananda Shetty has said that RGUHS will now send question papers to colleges by email just minutes before examinations begin and tabulation of results will be done on computers and sent back to the university by email. The university had now introduced this system in postgraduate courses and it was a successful move. “We will soon introduce the system in undergraduate courses and manual entry of marks will stop,” he added.

Dr. Shetty claimed that RGUHS was the only university in the country which had formed a “professional misconduct committee” to monitor erring valuators.

Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, he recalled that in a particular case, one evaluator had given a student 14 marks for an answer, while the question itself was for only 10 marks. The university this year had debarred 17 such evaluators who were not professional. “We also blacklist evaluators and try not to invite them for evaluation work as far as possible,” he added.

Dr. Shetty said the university had also introduced a facility whereby a student could contest his evaluation process, by paying a prescribed fee of Rs. 5,000 per paper. A copy of the answer script would be sent for re-evaluation and if the candidate were to get more marks, the fees paid would be refunded.

Dr. Shetty said that over 650 institutions including those teaching medicine, nursing and alternative therapies would soon come under the purview of university. Of them, 50 per cent were nursing colleges (323). For nursing colleges, recognition from the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and the Karnataka Nursing Council (KNC) was mandatory. “Some colleges do not have INC permission to conduct courses. Students from these colleges will not be eligible for employment in places where recognition is mandatory. The RGUHS has sent such a list to the State Government requesting it not to admit students to these colleges,” he added.

On the relocation of the university to Ramanagara, Dr. Shetty said, “The Government promised to give us 300 acres of land. Now 142 acres has been acquired but farmers have gone to court seeking a stay on the acquisition of the remaining land. Once the land is fully acquired, we will shift to the new campus.”

He said the Central Committee for Indian Medicine wrote to the university last year asking the authorities not to admit students to 28 Ayurveda colleges in the State as they did not have any infrastructure. By then, the admissions were already over. The university wrote to the CCIM stating that the admissions were already over and hence they may be permitted to continue. As many as 1,400 students were admitted to these colleges.

Dr. Shetty said there were 18,000 teaching staff working in colleges, teaching medicine and alternative forms of therapy, but the university needed another 5,000. The number of postgraduate seats would also be increased, he added.

He said there would be no problems as far as fresh admissions to Government Medical Colleges in Hassan, Shimoga, Mandya, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum were concerned. The Medical Council of India would be meeting in Delhi on June 10 and would send renewal of recognition letters to the Karnataka Government. Seats in these colleges were available for the first round of counselling, he added.

Principal of SDM College of Ayurveda Prasanna N. Rao was present.

VTU website a big help for students, RGUHS to follow

Students aspiring to study engineering in Karnataka can now get information of colleges at the click of a mouse. In order to help students and parents about affiliated engineering colleges, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has posted a list of affiliated colleges on its website, www.vtu.ac.in

The website provides information on affiliated programmes offered in these colleges for 2009-10. Students can get details of the colleges before applying for admission.

"Through this, students can avoid getting admitted in unaffiliated programmes or institutions. But some students still end up studying in unaffiliated colleges," VTU registrar K V A Balaji told STOI.

The university's move follows instances of colleges advertising a nominal tuition fees in the beginning and demanding more money after admission. "Students should be cautious about such institutions," he said.

The registrar also advised students to verify claims made by such institutions in advertisements or admission brochures.

The VTU cautioned affiliated engineering colleges against admitting students under NRI quota above the perscribed percentage of sanctioned strength without AICTE approval. This will result in cancellation of admission. Students taking a seat under this category can check the VTU website and if there's a doubt, they can contact the university.

Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) are also working towards putting college details on its website. RGUHS registrar Dr S Vasantha Kumar told STOI that details will include seats available in each college, website address, contact person, email id, etc. "The university will also post results of each college over three years," he said, adding that a recent photograph of the college will also be posted so that students get an idea about its infrastructure.

Lack of quality education in nursing, says RGUHS V-C

Nursing education is treading a path of self destruction due to lack of quality education in the state, said S Ramananda Shetty, vice-chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University for Health Sciences (RGUHS).

Speaking at the Gradation Day ceremony of Athena Institute of Health Sciences here on Friday, Shetty said the quality of education and quantity of admission for nursing courses was drastically coming down due to mushrooming of colleges.

During the last academic year of 15,465 seats in nursing courses only 9,645 seats were filled and remaining 5,820 seats were left vacant. Further, 59 nursing institutes could not make a single admission, he said.

Regretting over the nursing institutes ignoring providing necessary infrastructure and quality of education, he said this attitude would spell the death knell for the institutes.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, DK district in-charge minister J Krishna Palemar stressed the need for the health science institutes focusing on extending quality health services to the rural areas where a major chunk of the country's population resides. The rural masses should not be deprived of the revolution in the field of health care, he said.

Load-shedding in nursing syllabus: RGUHS Registrar

To reduce the burden of excess syllabus on nursing students, Sachidananda, Registrar of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), made an announced at the farewell ceremony of “JSS Nurses Fest-2009” for the revision of curriculum of the course.

Sachidananda explained that the curriculum needs to be updated and revised because the nursing students have to study seven subjects in the first year as compared to only three subjects in the first year of medicine courses.

The changes will be effective from next academic year, he said.

Focus on nursing education

The focus on improvement of quality of nursing education came to light when S Ramananda, vice-chancellor of RGUHS, spoke on May 15, last Friday, at Mangalore on how mushrooming of several nursing colleges and their inability to provide necessary infrastructure has drastically reduced quality of nursing education in the state.

He mentioned that in the last academic year, only 9,645 seats were filled out of the total 15,465 available seats. 59 nursing institutes in the state remained completely vacant last year.