No students in the Religious Studies Department at Punjabi University; seven teachers sit idle, varsity to recruit more

Consider this: the Religious Studies Department at Punjabi University, Patiala, has seven teachers, but they sit idle. Reason: there are no students to teach.

This, despite the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) offering Rs 2,000 every month as stipend to anyone who studies the Sikh religion.

Latest admission records of the university, which is one of the oldest seats of religious studies in north India, show that the religious studies section has drawn a blank. Not that it was popular earlier, but it used to get some students.

Of the 80 seats available in the department — ranging from Sikhism and Hinduism to Jain and Buddhist studies — not one has been filled up this year. Last year, half of these 80 seats were taken up.

Head of the department Rajinder Kaur Rohi say, “Our discipline is not linked to the job market. And in these recessionary times, everyone wants a job.”

She adds that the department intends to re-advertise for the seats — 20 each for MA in Religious Studies, Sikh Studies and Buddhist Studies, and another 20 for a certificate course in Pali Language. But there is hardly time to “re-advertise”.

The last date to take admissions (July 22) is long gone. It looks unlikely for the varsity to start the re-advertising process and complete the compulsory 180 days of teaching, as per the UGC norms. But strangely, the university continues to hire for this student-less department. In addition to the seven existing teachers, recruitment process to fill five more posts — a professor, a reader and three lecturers — will be held on August 10. Notwithstanding the resource crunch, empty coffers and austerity measures of the Punjab government, lakhs of rupees is being spent on the department without any results.

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