Teachers to boycott varsity exam duties

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 29

In what appears to be major stand-off emerging between the state government and the colleges, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of managements, principals and teaching staff today accused Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann of backtracking from his commitment on taking back decision on starting centralised admission portal for colleges.

Direct attack on autonomy of colleges

The state government has failed to understand

the concerns of the colleges; the centralised portal is a direct attack on the autonomy of the colleges which will not be accepted at any cost. JAC members

If govt doesn’t listen, will intensify stir

The portal impacts the colleges financially and administratively. We need to be ready for a major fight. If the government does not wake up, we will intensify the struggle. Dr Vinay Sofat, Teachers’ Union president

The JAC comprises Aided College Managements, Principals’ Associations of three state universities and Punjab Chandigarh Colleges Teachers’ Union (PCCTU). They said the CM had made commitment during the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection that the colleges were free to make their own admissions and the government would not interfere in their admission schedule and the centralised admission portal proposed by the Department of Higher Education would be taken back.

“On getting the assurance, we called off our protest rallies and march during the election time and the reports regarding this were published in the media”, said JAC head Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina.

Addressing the mediapersons soon after JAC’s emergency meeting today at Lyalpur Khalsa College for Women, Chhina said, “We never expected the CM and his two ministers whom the JAC delegation had met on May 2 and May 3, would backtrack in this manner. “This is uncalled-for and a surprise move. The bureaucratic fabric has virtually backstabbed for the vested interests as they want to benefit the private players in the higher education,” said JAC members.

The JAC, while condemning the various threatening letters to the colleges in last two days, said the communication being sent smacks of bureaucratic dominance of the Department of Higher Education. “The government has failed to understand the concerns of the colleges; the centralised portal is a direct attack on the autonomy of the colleges which will not be accepted at any cost.”

Now we have decided to intensify the agitation on the above issues jointly as it is a matter of survival for the colleges. “ All the college teachers will boycott all the exam duties and evaluation work of the three state Universities, including Panjab University, Chandigarh, Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar. We never wanted to take this extreme step as we are concerned about the students. But the dictatorial attitude of the government is forcing us to take it, said the JAC members, which including Principals Association (GNDU) head Dr Gurdev Singh and Punjab and Chandigarh Teachers’ Union (PCCTU) president Dr Vinay Sofat.

Apart from this, the JAC also decided to organise a chain protest at all 140 colleges in Punjab and Chandigarh from June 1 onwards.

The colleges, they said, were already witnessing shortfall in admissions due to the flight of the youth to foreign countries There are numerous ill-effect of the portal on the colleges financially and administratively. Dr Vinay Sofat said, “We need to be ready for a major fight if the government does not wake up. We will further take up the struggle to new height.”

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