Bangalore University (BU) has decided to start BCA  and BBM distance education courses from the academic year 2009-10. According to the semester scheme, the syllabus has already been approved for the courses. “We will start MBA and MCA distance education courses also, after getting approval from the central distance education council,” said BU registrar Sanjay Veer Singh.

In a syndicate meeting held on Thursday, the university, which has decided to appoint a special officer to overview the correspondence courses, appointed an agency to screen study centres outside. The university is also starting some new courses in the department of foreign languages from this year.

On the cards are certificate and diploma courses in Russian, a certificate course in Finnish, a diploma course in Chinese, a higher-diploma course in Korean, a diploma course in Urdu and a diploma course in Sanskrit (regular and external). Among other developments at the university, it decided to increase the salary of guest faculty members from Rs 250 to Rs 350 per day in a syndicate meeting.

 More than 150 guest faculty members work in the university’s 48 departments, Singh said. However, even as the syndicate meeting was in progress, BU hostelers started protesting on the Jnana Bharathi campus on Thursday morning. As a result, the syndicate decided to set up a hostel management council to look into their problems.