Bengaluru: The newly carved Bengaluru Central University (BCU) has seen a 15 per cent dip in applications to its postgraduate courses for 2019-20, as compared to last year, after introducing a common entrance test for admissions this year.
The university, formed last year after trifurcating Bangalore University, invited applications for 19 different PG courses, like commerce, arts, management and science, in 18 departments.
The university distributed 6,000 applications, as compared to 7,500 last year. Of these, only 4,600 students appeared for the entrance test that concluded last week, marking a sharp decline.
Going by the students appearing for the entrance test, commerce and science courses received a good response, while there were few takers for arts subjects.
In all, 2,053 students took the test as against the availability of 1,550 seats for commerce and management subjects. The university offers Master of Commerce (M.Com) in Finance & Accounting, International Business, Tourism and Travel Management, Master of Management Studies (MMS) and Masters in Fashion and Apparel Design.
For science, 2,098 students took the test for 693 seats in Chemistry, Biotechnology, Physics, Plant Science, Psychology and Biotechnology courses at its campus and affiliated institutions.
For arts, the response was not encouraging. The university managed to fill all the seats last year, but this year, 40 per cent of the students who applied failed to appear for the test.
“Lack of hostel facilities, toilets, library, scarcity of teaching and non-teaching staff in the newly carved university, among other reasons, are attributed for the fall in admissions for the arts stream,” a student leader, Mahesh, said.
