Shivamogga: PG courses in city colleges closed, Vice-Chancellor defends move

Published 27 July 2026 · education

Kuvempu University has decided to stop offering post-graduate courses at its constituent colleges in the city — Sahyadri Arts College and Sahyadri Science College

Kuvempu University has decided to stop offering post-graduate courses at its constituent colleges in the city — Sahyadri Arts College and Sahyadri Science College — a move that has drawn the wrath of student organisations and people’s representatives. Sahyadri Arts College had been offering post-graduate courses in English, Economics and Political Science, while the neighbouring Sahyadri Science College offered MSc programmes in Biotechnology, Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Physics and a few other subjects. Students unable to travel to the university’s main campus at Shankarghatta, about 20 km from the town, had enrolled in these courses at the city colleges.

Shivamogga MLA S.N. Channabasappa of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently met Kuvempu University Vice-Chancellor Sharath Ananthamurthy and appealed to him to continue running the courses at the colleges. Channabasappa said the post-graduate departments in these colleges had been performing well, with many students securing top ranks in the university. Representatives of the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishat (ABVP) also appealed to the university to continue the courses in the city colleges. Ananthamurthy told The Hindu that the decision was triggered by instructions from the Department of Higher Education. In a communication to universities, the State government had directed that courses run without statutory approval be managed using internal resources.

“We decided to close certain courses, considering this. However, we applied this only to redundant courses, not new courses that attract students,” he said. He further argued that inter-disciplinary studies were inevitable in any university today. “There is no point in keeping the departments isolated. We need to ensure universities work in the form of a school, where students can take up inter-disciplinary courses. In the post-graduate course in Environmental Science, we offer a paper on amphibians, which students of Zoology can also take up. This can work only when different departments are in the same vicinity,” he added.

He also felt that the distance would not be an issue as there is ample transportation facility to the campus. The Department of Higher Education, in its communication to universities, said in response to their request for funds towards the pension of retired employees that the government would provide assistance only if the universities removed the additional posts they had recruited for.