Brief History of Department of Marketing
The Department of Marketing is coming under the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce [FMSC] of the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka as one of the five departments. The FMSC has initiated its functions in the year 1999 with two departments, the Department of Management Studies and the Department of Commerce. Later in the year 2010, the academic programs of the FMSC were restructured with the intention of enriching the management programme and giving professional training to enhance employability. Under the said restructuring programme, four departments viz Department of Accounting, Department of Financial Management, Department of Human Resource Management and Department of Marketing were established and decided to offer a single degree programme, Bachelor of Business Administration, with avenues of respective specialization under each department. As such, Mr. E. Ratnam was the first head of the department when the marketing department initiated its activities in early 2011.
With the social pressure, the Department of Commerce was reactivated in the faculty in 2013 under the faculty of FMSC.
Students are getting themselves registered as per University Grants Commission [UGC] list. The first and second year study programme is common to all, and at the end of their second year, as per their preference and performance, they are divided for specialization. Averagely, 40 – 50 students enrolled every year to read specialization in Marketing. During their third and fourth year study, they are being coached and trained in various marketing related course units. During their fourth year the second semester, they have to go for an internship programme in their preferred institutions for marketing related internship programmes in addition to their dissertation. Students’ performance during the internship is being monitored and supervised by department assigned supervisor as well organization assigned supervisor/mentor. Most of the students are being offered permanency in those organizations at the end of their internship because of their performance during the internship period of three to four months.
At present, we have ten permanent academic cadres where all are filled. All of them are professionally qualified in the field of marketing. Very friendly behaviour with easily approachable staff is the main strength of the department. Academic staff used to adopt creative types of approaches in addition to their conventional teaching during the third and fourth years of study. These methods were appreciated and welcomed by the students, these included field trips, factory visits, poster presentations, creation of advertisements, juice bars fairs to adopt creative strategies, individual as well group presentations, etc. The blended teaching method was also adopted by the staff from 2017 which made student – centred teaching and learning easier during Covid 19 crisis.
Students from the Department of Marketing are very creative and talented. This is clearly proven by the activities and competitions they take part in. One among the top five finalists at the ADCON -2019 competition conducted by the University of Ruhuna, was the team from the Department of Marketing, UOJ. This was a remarkable achievement in the department history. In addition, Marketing Forum, a platform, which provides ample opportunities to build their knowledge and skills through various programmes.
With the initiation made by Mr. V. Kumaradeepan, a senior academic of the department, the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing [SLIM] step forwarded to sign an MoU with the department in the year 2021. This MoU has two offers, one is the Gold Medal to the best performing student who scores the highest overall Grade Point Average [OGPA]. The other offer is the full scholarship to read the Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing with SLIM for the gold medalist.
During the later part of 2019, the department shifted to Kalasalai Road, Tirunelveli, Jaffna, as its own premises, with comparatively enough space. Prior to this, it was located in a very small room in the main University premises by facing a lot of lapses and hardships, especially to the staff. This shift was a long-awaited thirst of the department and was implemented during the present head, Mr. M. Karunanithy, who played a key role by shouldering it with some challenges.