SHILLONG, AUG 1: Vice Chancellor of the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Prof Prabha Shankar Shukla has sought time to take a call on the demand for convening an emergent Academic Council meeting to discuss the National Education Policy (NEP) implementation.
Shukla conveyed this to a joint delegation of the Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) and NEHU Students’ Union, who met him on Tuesday here.
“We have demanded an immediate Academic Council meeting as it is the best authority to decide on the future of the students of Meghalaya as well as students from outside the state. With a lot of experts and people with experience, the Academic Council will give the right opinion on the future of our students,” HYC chief Robertjune Kharjahrin told reporters.
“On this demand to convene an urgent Academic Council meeting, the NEHU VC said he needs time to discuss with his colleagues,” he said.
He said during the meeting, the delegation had questioned whether the NEHU can decide to go ahead with the NEP implementation without approval of the Academic Council. As per the NEHU norms and ordinances, the Academic Council is an authority, which will take decisions on policy matters.
“Therefore in our understanding, the decision to implement the NEP is a policy matter and when it is a policy matter it needs the approval and sanction of the Academic Council. We feel that the Executive Council of NEHU cannot by itself decide to implement NEP without the approval of the Academic Council,” Kharjahrin pointed out.
This came after there are two groups of institutions that have arisen following the NEHU’s announcement to implement the NEP. While one group is for going ahead with NEP implementation and the other group has expressed concern that Meghalaya is not ready to implement NEP at this point of time because of the numerous challenges.
In view of the confusion over the NEP implementation, the HYC leader said that the delegation has also demanded the NEHU VC to immediately call a meeting with the various institutions and teaching community, especially those who are staging an agitation against the hasty decision to implement NEP. He said NEHU should invite the teacher’s bodies, be it Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association (MCTA), which has decided to boycott the first semester classes, or the NEHU Teachers’ Association and others to have a proper discussion.
“He (Shukla) has assured us that he would immediately call all stakeholders to discuss the matter,” he said while adding “We also feel that all principals should also have a say on this matter and importantly this issue need to be discussed in the present of the state government officials as when it comes to funding, NEHU will not be able to fund any money to the colleges, except academic support.”
Meanwhile, the joint delegation also met the state education minister Rakkam A Sangma and sought clarification as to how the state government will help the colleges in as far as NEP implementation is concerned.
Kharjahrin said they wanted to know whether the state government will help these colleges to ensure the burden does not fall on the students and their parents. According to him, most of the colleges have given admission and most students have paid admission fees and if fees are increased, parents will be forced to take education loans.
He informed that the education minister had assured the delegation that he would soon convene a meeting of the Meghalaya Higher Education Council to discuss the NEP implementation as to whether it needs to be deferred to next year.
Also raising the issue of the need to set up a State University in the state, Kharjahrin said this issue has arisen time and again because Meghalaya till date does not have a State University. The Captain Williamson Sangma State University is yet to come up.
“Therefore, we demand that it is high time for Meghalaya to have one State University in Shillong.
Whether the government will build a new university or will just upgrade one of the colleges in Shillong as a university where most of the colleges can be affiliated (it is up to the government to decide),” he said.
“The moment we have our own state university, the state government will have some sort of liberty to redesign the policy. They may take the good thing from NEP and make it into a state policy with additional inputs which may suit the state,” the HYC leader said while adding that “the education minister has assured that he will have to think on this because it is a big thing but we have clearly stated that if the state government could pull funds from various departments to build a State Assembly why not you pull funds from various departments to build one State University and one in Garo Hills and one in Khasi-Jaintia Hills.”
By Our Reporter
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