SHILLONG: The North Eastern Hill University Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) observed NEHUTA Day on Saturday
The significance of the day lay in adoption of NEHUTA’s flag and emblem on this day in 2011. Since then, the NEHUTA has celebrated the day to uphold its motto, “unity is strength”.
The NEHUTA took pledge to tirelessly work for academic excellence and improvement of service conditions of teachers with a special emphasis on the yeoman role that the university teachers can play in building a knowledge economy.
The NEHUTA also commits itself to overall change in the scenario of higher education in North-east India by raising critical issues such as spending of 10% of education budget for North-East and giving of 25% of basic as incentive to teachers and grant of at least 1.5 lakh a year to every teacher as research grant.
Unfurling the NEHUTA flag in its office premises at NEHU, Prof. Xavier P. Mao, president, exhorted every teacher to stand together for the larger collective interest of NEHU as a university.
He also called upon teachers, students and other stakeholders to rise above narrow personal interest and work for the larger social good of higher education selflessly.
Prof. S.B. Prasad on the occasion reminded everyone their role in keeping up overall intellectual, cultural and academic responsibility and called for united struggle against any attempt to divide teachers’ unity and create any potentially disruptive situation in the university.
Others who spoke on the occasion included Prof. Surinder Singh, H. Srikanth, Ms.Umarani Pappuswamy, Dr. Bharat Tripathy and Dr. B. Mohapatra.
Dr. Prasenjit Biswas, general secretary emphasized on the need to carry on NEHUTA’s democratic struggle to correct anomalies in promotion and pay fixation.
The NEHUTA in this brief meeting drew the attention of central government not to allow any curtailment of teachers’ rights and entitlements in Northeast India and called upon all the authorities to uphold the act, statute and ordinance of the university in the right earnest.