A proposal to start masters’ courses in Sherubtse College has been rejected by the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). The reason being lack of qualified faculty. The College, one of the oldest institutions in the Country, was supposed to begin offering masters’ courses from this year. The college is re-working its proposal, now.
A proposal was sent to RUB for approval in 2012. The College proposed to start the courses in Mathematics, Economics and English earlier this year. The Director, Tshering Wangdi, said RUB was concerned about the strength of faculty on campus at Sherubtse. “If we look at the Department of Mathematics and Economics we hardly have any Bhutanese faculties who have Ph.D qualification,” he said, adding that the RUB advised them to concentrate more on developing faculties, to have at least 1 or 2 Ph.D holders.
The Director added that the College also had to look at the number of students who were willing to pursue their masters in Sherubtse. This, he said, was mainly because many preferred doing their masters outside the Country. However, starting next year the College is expected to have its first batch of students.
The College is working on offering masters in art science through the department of geography. “We are also working on offering masters’ in courses like energy science, social research and developmental studies,” said the Director.
“If not all, at least we might be able to offer around 4 to 5 masters courses in the next five years. That is our commitment to RUB.” The Director added that ground works had already been started.
The College has plans to collaborate with the Universities in Singapore and the Netherlands for the masters’ courses. Currently, there are more than 1400 students pursuing degree in various subjects and over 85 faculty members.
Sherubtse College was first established as a Public School in 1968. It became a junior college in 1976 and then a full-fledged degree college in 1983. It was then affiliated with Delhi University in India.
