CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Assembly urged the Union Ministry of Education to immediately roll back the new norms and regulations brought in by the UGC for the appointment of Vice Chancellors for State Universities, on the devising of education methods based on the New Educational Policy (NEP) for undergraduate and postgraduate students and for the appointment and promotions of teaching and non-teaching staff in the universities.
A government resolution, moved by Chief Minister M K Stalin and passed unanimously in the House on Thursday, said the UGC’s proposals would not only affect the higher education infrastructure in the State that had been built on the principles of social justice but also affect the future of the youth in the State.
Speaking on the resolution, Stalin said that several efforts had been made to hamper the State’s 'education for all' policy by those who resented the common people getting educated and gaining jobs and had been erecting repeated road blocks in various forms to impede the flow of the stream of education all over the State.
The State had unfailingly opposed such moves like the NEP, brought in to destroy school education, Public examinations to prevent students climbing up the educational ladder and entrance examinations like the NEET that continued to demolish the dreams of several medical college aspirants, starting with Anitha of Ariyalur district, despite the irregularities in the conduct of the entrance test coming to light, he said.
On those lines, the Union Government had now started making moves to finish off the universities in the State through the introduction of the norm empowering Governors to form the search committee for appointing Vice Chancellors even when the dispute between the State government and Governor over the inclusion of UGC nominee in the search committee in Tamil Nadu remained unresolved, he said.
The State Government did not agree for the inclusion of the UGC nominee in its search committees for selection of vice chancellors and when the standoff continued unresolved it was improper and unfair to hand over the entire power of appointing the search committees to the Governor, Stalin said.
After bringing in such unacceptable norms, the Union Government would penalize the universities for non-compliance of those rules by preventing them from participating in the UGC schemes and threatening them with actions like not allowing the issuing of degrees by the universities raised and nurtured purely on the resources of the State, he said.
The diabolic move by the Union Government to appropriate the universities built on the economic capabilities of the State went against the federal principles and such interference in the State’s rights amounted to belittling the governments chosen by the people, he said.
To make education universal, the powers related to it should only be vested with those elected by the people as people occupying nominated posts in the State for a few years and then going away would not be able to understand the basic sentiments of the people, he said.
The Union Government that never strained a nerve to rein in the private universities that charged exorbitant amounts of fees and never followed the reservation policy had been reducing its budget for higher education without bothering to start an IIT or IIM or central university in the State, was now trying to bring State universities under its stronghold, he said.
Tamil Nadu had the maximum number of elite institutions of repute and the Union Government’s move was made only with ulterior and selfish motives and not for developing education, he said.
