Kerala - Kozhikode   

`Professional colleges Act not passed in haste'

Staff Reporter

Minority rights protection should not cause discrimination: Baby

ON PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION: Minister for Education M.A. Baby inaugurating a seminar in Kozhikode on Monday.

KOZHIKODE: A seminar on the "Kerala Professional Colleges Act and Kerala society," organised by the Keluettan Padhana Kendram at the Tagore Hall here on Monday, turned out to be an occasion for divergent opinions to be expressed on the new law. Minister for Education M.A. Baby, who inaugurated the seminar, criticised allegations that the Government had passed the Act in haste.

"The Left Democratic Front Government was only fulfilling its electoral promise in passing the Act at a juncture when self-financing professional education sector in the State was turning out to be money-making ventures.

In the last five years, the sector had witnessed a deteriorating trend, and a cancerous growth had set in. Under the circumstances the Government had to act swiftly to reverse the trend."

He likened allegation of haste to a complaint that a goal had been scored swiftly by the winning football team.

According to him, rights of minorities do not mean that the former should be provided more rights than the majority. The basic tenet is the establishment of an egalitarian and secular society.

"Minority rights protection should not lead to reverse discrimination," Mr. Baby said.

What ultimately mattered was the need to maintain the dictum of merit in professional education and such education was not made a prerogative of the rich. The K.T. Thomas Commission on fees too had flayed the stand of the self-financing college managements on the premise that "they had violently violated norms."

The Minister questioned why the previous United Democratic Front Government had failed to act on a directive of Union Minister for Human Resource Arjun Singh to the then Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, asking the State to make appropriate law in keeping with the Constitution amendment on reservation.

The previous Minister for Education, E.T. Mohammed Basheer, and G.P.C. Nair, general secretary, Kerala Self-Financing Engineering College Management Association, spoke.

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