Malayalam, Urdu may ''pass out'' from Presidency College!

Chennai, July 29 (UNI) With the number of admission seekers coming to nought this year the Presidency College here may discontinue offering graduate courses (main), in Urdu, Hindi, and Malayalam.

Presidency College, regarded as one of the best colleges in the country, was an off-region campus for many minority languages.

Students from other states have the privilege of pursuing higher studies in their mother tongue here.

It also has the rare distinction of introducing various courses in Malayalam way back in 1851, making it the first such college in the country. Kerala was part of the erstwhile Madras Presidency then. Incidentally, this is the only college offering Malayalam (main) courses in Tamil Nadu now.

Denying charges of being labelled as ''anti-minority and pro-saffron'', College Principal S Ramanathan told UNI that there was a ''gradual decline'' in the number of candidates over the years for these courses and added it came to an all-time low with no new entrants for Urdu and Malayalam for first year UG this year.

Of the 12,345 application forms issued, 9113 were acknowledged-- with just a single one for Hindi and drawing a blank in Urdu and Malayalam. ''It cannot be blamed on the Principal or the college administration. We can only issue application forms and recruit accordingly. What else can we do when there are no applicants?'' The acceptance of application was from May 21 to June 7 with academic year beginning on June 30. ''There was not even late applications for these courses to which the college is lenient,'' he noted.

All these courses have a sanctioned strength of 10 each. As Malayalam and Urdu have no takers this year, their tally stands:- Malayalam- two in second year (SY) and three in Third Year (TY); Urdu- three in SY and one in TY; Hindi- one each in FY and SY, and three in TY.

The staff strength in Malayalam department is four while it is two each in Urdu and Hindi.

However, some other authorities of the college speaking on condition of anonymity said the Principal was only acting on the ''orders'' of higher ups. ''Usually, the management is lenient to late applicants. But it is not the case this year. Application forms are denied to late-comers'', they alleged.

Denying reports of ''deliberate attempts to do away with'' the courses the Principal said '' I have informed the government of the sagging numbers for these courses. But, I have not recommended the termination of the courses as being alleged by some quarters. The decision of issuing fresh application rests with the government.'' However, the students attributed the waning numbers to the growing disinterst in language studies.

UNI