JORHAT, Feb 20 - Out of a total of 580 students who have passed out of Assam Women�s University (AWU) situated at Rowriah here, 497 have applied for certificates to be handed over to them during the first-ever convocation of the university to be held on February 25.
Speaking to newspersons at AWU here on Wednesday, Vice Chancellor Dr Malinee Goswami said Governor Prof Jagdish Mukhi, who is also the Chancellor of AWU, will deliver the convocation lecture and confer the degrees to the students who has passed from the university.
She said that among the 497 students scheduled to get their certificates, 486 were from postgraduate courses and the rest 11 were from undergraduate programmes.
Dr Goswami stated that four batches of students have passed from the university since 2016 after the institute established by an Act of the Assam Assembly in 2013, and the university started functioning from 2014.
The Vice Chancellor said that at present, the strength of AWU faculty members was 52 in 15 departments with a non-teaching staff of 20. Dr Goswami, while replying to a query, said that the total strength of faculty members in the university should be 105 with seven teachers per department, as per UGC norms.
She said that altogether 16 courses were being conducted by the university, out of which 13 were postgraduate programmes, two undergraduate programmes and one diploma.
The undergraduate programmes were on psychology and physiotherapy and the diploma course was a postgraduate diploma in Computer Application. Currently, 493 students are pursuing different courses in AWU, Dr Goswami said.
AWU Registrar Orpah Baglary and Academic Registrar Dr LK Hazarika were also present on the occasion.
It may be mentioned here that in 2018, there were massive protests by students and former students of AWU in apprehension of an alleged government plan to downgrade the university and lack of a Vice Chancellor to run the institute that was functioning under the mentorship of Assam Agricultural University.
The issue also found place in the Legislative Assembly, with the opposition and the government engaging in heated debates over the alleged plan to downgrade the university. About six months ago, the government appointed the first Vice Chancellor.
