Tamil Nadu - Erode   

`Do not allow entry of foreign universities'

Staff Reporter

AUT calls for policy changes to generate job opportunities'

ERODE: The Central Government should not permit foreign universities to enter the country to impart higher education, thereby transforming natives as junior partners of knowledge societies rather than as equals.

This was unanimously resolved at the Diamond Jubilee Zonal Conference of Association of University Teachers (AUT), Erode Zone, here on Sunday. The Handloom and Textiles Minister, N.K.K.P. Raja, inaugurated the conference. The State president of AUT, N. Senthamarai, read the resolutions approved in the meeting.

Financial allocation

Through another resolution, the conference resolved to request the State and Central Governments to adopt suitable policy changes with a view to generating adequate employment opportunities for the educated. It resolved to urge the Governments to provide a rational financial allocation for higher education, ensuring a minimum of ten per cent Gross National Product (GNP), and dropping any move to declare higher education as a non-priority sector.

The conference wanted University Grants Commission (UGC) and universities to stop granting autonomy and deemed university status to institutions. National and State-level review committees should be constituted with representation from teachers' organisation to go into the functioning of these institutions vis-à-vis innovation and advancement.

It resolved to request the Central Government and UGC not to discriminate against colleges in terms of selective funding preferentially to autonomous colleges and deemed universities.

The meeting wanted Tamil Nadu Government to lift the moratorium on starting Government and aided colleges and courses with a view to providing social justice to the weaker sections of the society.

Discussions

It thanked the State Minister for Higher Education for bringing in legislation of a common University Act, and urged the Government to hold discussions on the move.

The meeting wanted the Union Government to bring in legislation during the monsoon session to implement the 93rd Constitutional Amendment providing reservations for OBCs in institutions of higher learning. The meeting also appealed to UGC to clear doubts on the exemption of NET/SLET for M.Phil and Ph.D holders, since appointing teachers with M.Phil to teach only under graduate programmes would turnout to be a near impossibility and defeat the very move.

It appealed to the State Government to fill up all teachers' posts vacant in Government and aided colleges. The Government should direct the managements of aided colleges to regularise the service of full-time evening college teachers, and ensure the implementation of EPF scheme strictly in accordance with law. The meeting wanted the UGC and Central Government to constitute the UGC Pay Revision Commission.

Regulation

Teachers in evening and self-financing colleges should be provided with time scale pay. The conference resolved to request universities to exercise restraint in granting `glamorously-labelled' courses to evening and self-financing colleges as their proliferation provided a negative feedback to the programmes in language, social science and basic sciences. The meeting wanted proper implementation of Tamil Nadu Private Colleges Regulation Act to all self-finance and evening colleges. The Conference thanked the Chief Minister for revoking TESMA against teachers and Government employees.

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