Kolkata: Worried over the huge number of vacant seats in the Hindi department, Presidency University (PU) is planning to expand its Humanities stream by introducing Comparative Literature from the next academic year.
"At present, 128 seats at undergraduate and post graduate are lying vacant and most of them are in the Hindi and Philosophy department. We have been witnessing this for the last six or seven years. Hence, we are thinking of transforming the subject," said Anuradha Lohia, Vice-Chancellor of PU.
According to a senior administrative official of the university, the meeting of the faculty council and the governing body will be held soon to take a decision on how to address the problem.
It may be mentioned that the varsity will further extend the dates of admissions till September 15 for Hindi and Philosophy and if the situation persists, then the university may also bring down the number of seats in Hindi. The present number stands at 48.
"Jadavpur University has Comparative Literature as a subject at the undergraduate level which focuses on both Indian and Europeon Literature. We are planning to introduce Comparative Literature with the focus entirely on Indian Literature," a senior official said.
According to Lohia, it has been a big challenge on the part of the university to fill up the seats in Hindi. "We have found that a good number of students who study Hindi in rural colleges but the number of students pursuing the subject in Kolkata are not many," the V-C maintained.