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Student organisations to intensify stir

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, OCT. 6. The pro-Left student organisations have resolved to intensify their agitation in protest against what they termed the apathy of the State Government in keeping its promise given to them on the issue of self-financing professional colleges.

Alleging that the flawed policies of the Government in respect of the functioning of the self-financing institutions had resulted in a severe crisis in the educational sector, the leaders of the Left Democratic Students Action Council sought immediate remedial measures to set things right.

At a press conference here this evening, they said that a `protest day' would be observed in all campuses on October 8 and protest marches staged in all district centres on October 12. If the Government continued to be indifferent to the issues in focus, there would be no alternative but to go ahead with the stir in a more intensified fashion, they said.

Pro-management

It was not only that the Government retracted from its declared policy of two self-financing institutions being equivalent to one Government institution, the Government had also been instrumental in creating a situation conducive to the managements to commercialise higher education. Even the Bill pertaining to the functioning of the self-financing institutions had not been drafted with the interest of the State in mind. On the other hand, the managements were given the opportunity to question its validity in a court of law, they maintained.

Following widespread protest from student organisations, an assurance was given to them on August 5, on the question of drawing up the fee structure in the self-financing colleges. However, on September 1, through an extra-ordinary notification, the Government sabotaged its own decision taken earlier, thereby favouring the managements. This had affected not only the students admitted to the professional colleges this year, but also those now in the second year of the professional courses.

Commercialisation

The attitude of the Government, of favouring the commercialisation of professional education, was visible even in the case of admission to the self-financing medical colleges. More than the criterion of merit of the student, it was the paying capacity of the parent that was the prime consideration in the matter of admission to the MBBS course in the colleges under the Co-operative Academy of Professional Education, the student leaders further alleged.

T.V. Rajesh, convener of the Action Council, and leaders of pro-Left student organisations were present at the press conference.

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