KATHMANDU, March 20: Students who graduate in Social Works in the country face difficulty getting their master’s degree on time.
Purbanchal University, the only university in the country running a master’s program for Social Works, has proven unreliable in conducting exams on time.
Students enrolled for the Master´s in Social Works program at St. Xavier’s College, Thapathali learnt this the hard way. [break]
Twenty-four students who enrolled for the program in 2004 ended up sitting for their fourth semester exams only last month, over two years behind schedule. Inordinate delays in conducting the exams forced half the enrolled students to drop out and switch to other studies.
“We lost two valuable years that we should ideally have been able to use laying the foundations for our careers,” said a 2004 batch student under the program at St. Xavier’s who breathed a big sigh of relief after finally sitting for the fourth semester exams three weeks ago.
According to Himal Gautam, who oversees the Social Works Department at St. Xavier’s College, the university’s inability to take timely decisions on the exam schedule led to a doubling of the time taken by the course.
“There were neither any exams nor classes for a whole year in 2006 after the university’s vice chancellor was changed,” said Gautam. “The students had completed their semester studies and were waiting to sit for the exams. But the university was unable to call a meeting of its exams committee and board. This led to a delay of a whole year.”
One more year was lost in a series of delays lasting up to three months at a time, under various pretexts.
There are just two colleges in the country that run bachelor´s programs in Social Works – St. Xavier’s and Kadambari College. The bachelor´s program run by St. Xavier’s in under affiliation to Kathmandu University, while the program run by Kadambari is under Purbanchal University.
But master’s level studies in the subject exist only at St. Xavier’s, under Purbanchal University affiliation.
“There was nothing we could do about the delays. There is no other university that runs a master’s program for Social Works,” Gautam said.
Some 40 students enroll for the bachelor´s program every year at St. Xavier’s alone, which means around 120 students are currently studying the subject in the college at bachelor´s level.
Are they headed for a similar fate at the master’s level?
Father Arul, who is in the same department at St. Xavier’s College, said there is nothing that can be done at the moment except request Purbanchal University not to repeat such delays.
“But in the long run, this problem won’t exist as we are starting our own university, which will be called St. Xavier’s University,” he said.
But that is still a long way off, he said.
Repeated attempts by myrepublica.com to get comments from Purbahchal University’s contact office at Sinamangal were in vain.
bikash@myrepublica.com
SEE exam schedule to be published by tomorrow
