University of Hyderabad scraps cut-off marks for entrance

HYDERABAD: Starting this year, University of Hyderabad(UoH) will do away with cut-off marks in its entrance test for admissions to all courses offered by the varsity.

In 2012, the university had put cut off marks in place for students in general and OBC categories while those from SC and ST communities, were exempted from the same.

This year, all students who score in the entrance examination will be eligible to take admissions, depending on the availability of seats.

About 77% of the students will be benefited by it, university authorities said in a press conference held on campus.

The university is expected to conduct its entrance tests from February 1 to 7 and is planning to fill up all seats available in the new academic year. "This year, just 87% of the seats were filled," said M Rajasekhar, registrar, UoH.

Vice chancellor of the varsity, Ramakrishna Ramaswamy said that in the new academic year, UoH with the funding of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) will start a Hyderabad Lecture Series, where eminent people from across the world would come and deliver talks in various venues in the city.

As a first in the series, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is expected to deliver a talk on UoH campus on December 19.

The famous economist will also physically receive an honorary doctorate bestowed upon him by the varsity in 1993 on the same day, Ramaswamy said.

An honorarium of Rs 1 lakh will be given to each of the speakers, he said, adding that IRDA has contributed Rs 1 crore as corpus fund for the lecture series.

Announcing the future academic developments on campus, UoH officials said that they have decided to fill 67 teaching posts on campus in the coming academic year. "We are in need of new teachers. There are 150 teaching vacancies on campus and we hope to fill it in a phased manner," said Ramaswamy.

The press meet was held at the venue of the 82{+n}{+d} Annual Meeting of Society of Biological Chemists, India and International Conference on Genomes: Mechanisms and Function.

"The meet is an important fundamental science conference which will help an applied science like medicine and gene therapy later on," said Ramaswamy.

The varsity is also expected to introduce online open courses in the coming academic year. "We will invest in education technologies in the future and hopefully the online education in real time will commence from the coming academic year," said Ramaswamy.
(Source : Times of India)