Despite the spectre of the global slowdown looming large over most institutes, the student’s of the Social Engineering Department of the Lucknow University managed to secure cent per cent placement.

During the placement session, which lasted till June-end, the students were offered salary packages between Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh per annum and were posted in various districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They were picked up by various social sector organisations like CARE and various Seva Sansthan.

“The demand for the course has suddenly risen after the placements. This time we have received three times more applications than the seats available,” said Dr DR Sahu, coordinator of the course.

The course, which is a post graduate programme under the Department of Sociology, has been designed to educate students about issues like corporate sector responsibility, disaster management, rehabilitation and development management, project implementation and government policies regarding the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion.

“The course also plays an important role in sensitising students about the Millennium Development Goals of the UN,” added Sahu.

“From the coming session, an addition to this course would be the training in operational research to analyse sophisticated data and development indices,” he said.

“Apart from faculty members from various social science departments, we also invite development practitioners to equip the students. We also organise field trips for hands-on-experience,” said Sahu.

“This is the first course with such nomenclature (of blended social science subjects) to be introduced in any university, as per my knowledge,” said Sahu.