Suhail Bhat
PAMPORE, Jan 21: Students at the Government Degree College (GDC) Pampore in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district may face tough time this year as it lacks infrastructure and staff for the newly introduced Commerce and Science streams.
Established in 2012, the Degree College was functioning from the premises of Boys Higher Secondary School till June 2015 and subsequently shifted to its own building in Tulbagh area on the periphery of the town.
“After repeated requests and waiting for three years, the Government started construction work of the College in Pampore but they could only manage to raise couple of buildings and that has insufficient infrastructure,” Mohammad Shafi, a resident from Tulebagh area of Pampore, said, adding that before announcing new colleges Government should have made arrangements of the required staff and infrastructure.
An official of the college said that after the introduction of Science or Commerce streams, the requisite faculty was not allotted to the college, “The college has no classrooms and laboratories to accommodate the students of the two streams. Before introducing the new streams, Government should have increased the staff and upgraded the infrastructure,” he said, adding the new academic session is approaching but the process of up gradation is yet to start.
The college has a catchment area of 13 Higher Secondary Schools. “Till this year we had only ten subjects of the arts stream, which meant that the space and teachers were enough for the students,” said a Lecturer.
The college administration maintains that the college has been upgraded to cater to all subjects of Arts stream and the newly-introduced Science and Commerce streams are yet to be considered. “To be able to accommodate all the students of the three streams we need classrooms,” the administration said, adding for Science stream four laboratories are needed and for Commerce stream a dedicated computer lab is required.
Director Colleges, Prof Zahoor Ahmad Chatt told Excelsior that the decision to upgrade a college is taken on the basis of requisition sent by the concerned Principal. “The college has been upgraded with Science and Commerce streams on the request of the Principal. He must have taken the infrastructure into consideration. Why would he want to introduce two new streams if the infrastructure is unavailable?” he asked, “if the college administration feel they lack the required space they should write to us”.
He, however, assured that the required staff will be provided with the commencement of new academic session.
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