Chandigarh University focus on quality education
CHANDIGARH: Dr. R.S.Bawa is first Vice Chancellor of the Chandigarh University at Gharuan near Mohali who is a reputed economist, able administrator and trend setter in field of education. He was Registrar of Guru Nanak Dev Universithy for about 14 years before he was handpicked by Chandigarh University to head the institute set up in the year 2012. In an exclsuive interview with Satinder Bains Editor of Punjab News Express Dr. Bawa see Punjab fast emerging as golbal education hub.
Dr. Bawa said that it was matter of satisfaction that Punjab has made significant achievement in the field of higher education. The students from acorss the globe are turning to Punjab for obtaining higher education. He said that while a dozen universities have came up in the state, their entire focus is now to provide quality education. He feels satisfied that Chandigarh University is among the three universities from Punjab which have been recognised by the University Grants Commission. But the Chandigarh University is yongest and fastest growing among its competitors.
The recognition by UGC has given us an international acceptance and CU is member of Association of Indian Universities and Commowealth Association of Universities. As a rule if any university fails to get recognition within five years of its inception, it ceases the right to issue degrees, he added.
The Vice Chancellor said that Chandigarh University was started by Mr. Satnam Singh Sandhu a visionary in education field with a different mission of providing international exposure to its students and faculty as well. 'We have signed MoU with about 55 foreign universities and institutions of repute and negotiations are goping on with about six other universities in United Statres.
Dr. Bawa said that he had recently returned from USA where Chandigarh University had signed MoU with Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, Illinois State University Chicago, State University of New York Albany, University of Arkansas, University of Mississippi in exford and Louisiana State University. The talks are going on with Florida state University. The University has also tie up for exchange of students, faculty and joint projects with two universities inChina and six universities in Thailand.
Dr. Bawa expains that CU has been trend setting in education not in the region but in the country which reflects from its success and reference from students from across India. He said that students from 27 states and Union Territories were admitted in Chandigarh University and interesting fact is that 55 percent of their students are from outside state. Even international students from ten countries have been enrolled by CU. "We have crossed student strength of 24000 this year which no other university was able to achieve. "We may set up another campus in the coming years to cope with the demand for admission", he added.
Elaborating courses offerred by University, Dr. Bawa said that their emphasis was to provide exclusive and job oriented courses. We have strarted Petroleum Engineering, Auto Mobile Engineering, Mechatronics and Aerospace streams which no other university is offering at present. He said that they were only university to offer MBA in Agriculture, Tourism and Hospitality management, International Business are other streams in Business Management. The departments of Mass Communication, Law, Architecture, Hotel Management and computing are also fully functional.
Dr. Bawa stated that CU was running an Apex Institute of Technology in collaboration with Industry which is also an exclusive initiative. The Institute offers courses in BE Honors, Cloud Computing, bridge Data and analytics, Information Security in collaboration with IBM. We have also started MBA Business analytics, Financial Engineering in collaboration with ICICI Direct, Tally and Filip. The only lab of IBM in India, Software lab for emerging technology is located in Chandigarh University besides housing one of the three Microisoft India Global Technical Support centers in India.
Dr. Bawa said that most unique feature of CU was high placement rate among all universities. It is out hallmark, he said and informed that last year 262 companies came for placement and this eyar 300 companies are expected to participate.In three years we have successfully placed 15, 000 students.
He said that 110 members of their faculty are PhD which is a strong indicator of tough selection and a aimed to provide quality education. By next eyar the PhD faculty would reach number of 200. Dr. Bawa also said that University had its own security system and about 7000 students were staying at campus.