The Hindu : Kerala News : SFI begins stir from today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

SFI begins stir from today

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM. Sept. 14. Activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) will begin an indefinite strike tomorrow, in all the 21 self-financing engineering colleges under the Government, in protest against the Government's decision to charge the fee recommended by the K. T. Thomas Commission in these institutions.

This was stated at a press conference held here today by the State secretary of the SFI, T.V. Rajesh. In the first week of October, the SFI will organise a Secretariat march in which the students of private various self-financing colleges and their parents will participate.

National meet

The national general secretary of the SFI, Kallol Roy, said that a three-day All India Professional Students' Convention would be organised in Thiruvananthapuram from September 17 onwards. The former Supreme Court judge, V.R. Krishna Iyer, is scheduled to inaugurate the convention. The CPI(M) leader, Sitaram Yechury, is among those who will address the convention.

The SFI has been long demanding a Central legislation empowering State Governments to control admissions and fee in private educational institutions, especially self-financing institutions. A model act for this would be brought out at the convention to enable a national debate on the issue, he said.

The SFI would organise a meeting of all left student organisations in Delhi, in October to discuss the issue of self-financing professional colleges in the country.

Deemed university

The SFI is concerned about the mushrooming of deemed universities in the country. In this matter, the functioning of the University Grants Commission (UGC) is also suspect; there is even room for suspicion that underhand dealings are taking place for the granting of deemed university status to institutions, he alleged.

NAAC

The mode of functioning of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council( NAAC) of the UGC and the parameters used by it to grade colleges across the country is something which needs to be looked into. Today, the situation is such that the NAAC seems to be an instrument for winding up aided colleges and colleges which function in rural areas. The performance of the UPA Government in the education sector is very disappointing. There is a lot of rhetoric about de-saffronisation but on the ground, nothing is being done. When the people have given their mandate for a progressive Government, it is not clear why the Centre should hesitate in revoking the text books brought out by the NDA Government or discontinue courses such as `Jyothisastra'.

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