The Hindu : Kerala News : Talks with Left student bodies fail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Talks with Left student bodies fail

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, OCT. 13. The Government's attempt today to persuade the Left student organisations give up their agitation against the fee structure in the self-financing engineering colleges failed to bear fruit.

The organisations, led by the Students Federation of India, rejected the Education Minister, E.T. Mohammed Basheer's offer to bring in a comprehensive policy on self-financing institutions by next year. They said that the Government had deviated from its proclaimed policy regarding fee structure in these institutions.

Mr. Basheer, who convened the talks, expressed the Government's inability to change the current policy, as it would amount to violation of the Supreme Court decision on fee structure and create problems in running the courses.

Scientific study

He said that the Government would conduct a scientific study before sanctioning new self-financing education institutions. It would give priority to improving quality standards in the existing institutions and promote those offering varied courses.

He said that he had written to the Union Human Resources Minister, urging him to take steps to introduce legislation that would ensure opportunities for students belonging to the weaker sections in private self-financing institutions. Mr. Basheer clarified that the income limit of Rs. 1 lakh for admissions to the 50 per cent merit seats in Government engineering colleges was mainly intended to provide opportunities to the weaker sections.

In the 12 Government-owned engineering colleges, 918 students got admissions under the merit quota, of which 573 were benefited by the income limit. The income limit benefited 72 per cent of the students, including those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.

Education bandh

The Left students' organisations later announced their agitation plan. Addressing a press conference, the SFI president, T.V. Rajesh, said that the Left student organisations would observe an education bandh on October 20 and stage an Assembly march on December 1. He wanted the Chief Minister and Mr. Basheer to apologise for going back on their promise on self-financing institutions. The organisations also wanted the Kerala Students Union and the Muslim Students Federation to make clear their stance.

The pro-UDF organisations, led by the KSU, by and large went along with the Government stance.

However, the KSU wanted a new policy on the self-financing sector.

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