State-aided university vice-chancellors have been asked to go through the Centre’s draft national education policy and submit their views to the state government within a week, higher education minister Partha Chatterjee said on Wednesday.
Chatterjee met vice-chancellors and officials of the state-aided universities at Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake on Wednesday to discuss matters related to higher education in Bengal, including the draft national education policy and the ongoing admissions to undergraduate courses.
He asked the vice-chancellors to ensure seats don’t go vacant and that deserving candidates should be accommodated.
He said most vice-chancellors had opposed the draft national education policy and several of its provisions.
There is a clause in the policy that proposes to replace agencies like the University Grants Commission. There are provisions that could infringe on the autonomy of universities in academic matters.
There is an attempt to ensure the Centre has more power in respect to several matters related to higher education, a vice-chancellor said.
Minister Chatterjee said the vice-chancellors were unanimous about objecting to the draft policy. “We will go through their feedback and prepare a report after discussing the matter with the chief minister. The report will be sent to the Centre,” he said.
Speaking about seats going vacant, Chatterjee said several students had complained that their appeal for seats had been turned down by some colleges with vacant seats.
For example, there are students who had initially applied in five colleges of their choice, the minister said.
When they failed to secure a seat in any of these five colleges, they applied to other colleges. But their applications were turned down though these colleges had vacant seats, he said.
“The vice-chancellors have been asked to ensure that no student is denied admission this way if there are vacant seats. Admissions will have to be done strictly based on merit; but a student can’t be denied admission if there are enough seats.”
