SHILLONG: A joint meeting mandated and attended by the elected Teachers’ Associations of Five Central Universities of North-East India formed the Confederation of Central Universities Teachers’ Associations on July 27th at Tezpur University, Assam. The Confederation, named, North-East India Confederation of Central University Teachers’ Associations (NEICCUTA) would aim to serve as a platform for pursuing the various issues with the Central Government for improving the state of higher education in Northeast India.
The Confederation, after a thorough deliberation among elected members of various Central Universities’ Teachers’ Associations stated that Central Universities of Northeast India need to evolve democratic and transparent ways of functioning in order to deliver ‘academic, societal and intellectual excellence’.
Some of its major demands include spending of 10% of the Central budget on higher education in Northeast. The Confederation also demanded setting up of a Common Inter-University Research Consortium for Northeast that can take care of research funding in cutting edge areas by scholars, teachers and student of Northeast.
The Confederation demanded that every faculty member of the Central universities of the region be given a seed money of Rs. 1.5 lakh to attend important international conferences so that the teacher-researchers are encouraged to carry out global standard research.
More significantly, the Confederation demanded a special package for attracting and retaining talents in Northeast Central Universities by asking for 25% of basic pay as a special pay for building up a sustainable base of higher education in the region.
The Confederation also decided to submit a memorandum to the President of India listing all such demands.
The Confederation’s first office shall be located at NEHU, Shillong and it will rotate to other universities with a term of two years. Acordingly, Prof. Xavier P. Mao, Preasident of NEHU Teachers’ Association was elected as the Chairman of the Confederation and Dr. Prasenjit Biswas was named the Secretary General of the Confederation.