The downfall of a legacy

One of India’s oldest and largest, University of Mumbai struggles with skeletal staff, outdated infrastructure and deteriorating research quality now while its affiliated colleges flourish

- Musab Qazi

When Pranay Kale (name changed) signed up for MA in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Mumbai (MU), he was brimming with expectations. The youngster, hailing from a Kolhapur village, had imagined the course to fast-track his entry into one of the many media houses headquartered in the country’s financial capital, preferably covering politics.

It was not to be. When he graduated in 2022, he had little in terms of job prospects and had to undergo the usual rigmarole of endless internships before settling in a ‘content writer’ role at a publication.

While aware of the rapidly shrinking space in the journalism job market, Kale primarily blames the university for not doing enough to prepare him. “I wouldn't recommend the programme to anyone. Despite being located in a city where most of the media organisations have a presence, we didn’t get any exposure. There was little practical training, and the curriculum was heavy on public relations and Bollywood. Nobody told us about, much less taught, basic journalism tools such as the InScript keyboard. In an industry that relies on their own network for recruitment, I had no reference to cite,” he said.

Kale’s disappointment is shared by many who in recent years enrolled at one of 50-odd postgraduate (PG) departments and centres at MU, one of the oldest and largest state public universities in the country. Facing an acute shortage of senior staff, paucity of resources and administrative neglect, the (PG) departments are a far cry from being the nerve centre of varsity's research and development activity, with little to distinguish it from its affiliated colleges.