SHILLONG, Jan 3: Raising demands for a local qualified professor to be appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) has written to the Ministry of Education while stressing on the need to appoint the VC with the specified prerequisites, while the Meghalaya Confederation of Academic Welfare (MeCAW) has sought the expedition of the process of appointment of new VC.
In a letter to Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, the Union said, “Only a local professor will be a suitable person to look after the affairs of the University”. It pointed out that there will be a different sense of connect between a local VC and the students of the state.
Voicing concern over the decline in the overall university ranking besides incidents where the teachers and students’ body remonstrated by expressing their dissatisfaction against the last two VCs, the KSU said, “Since 1973, only one professor — Prof. B Pakem — from the Khasi community was appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the University.”
“Further, we will like to remind you that in many incidents the students and teachers’ bodies have expressed their concern over the need to appoint a local professor as the Vice Chancellor, as he/she will easily understand and address the problems which subsist within the varsity,” it added.
On the other hand, MeCAW has demanded faster completion of search-cum-selection process of a new Vice Chancellor while expressing its concern at “vicious attempts made by certain vested interests to continue with the pathetic and reprehensible regime of Prof SK Srivastava, the incumbent VC, in a new guise”.
“We demand faster completion of search-cum-selection process in a manner that the right person with sufficient academic and administrative excellence as an institution like NEHU deserves be found in conformity with culture and history of Meghalaya as a matrilineal society so that NEHU as the charioteer of higher education is no longer deprived of care and nurture that it deserves”, it said.
The MeCAW has alleged that Srivastava has been carrying out “violation of all academic and administrative norms” in collusion with two accomplices — Prof Henry Lamin and Prof G.Singhaiah, two Pro-VCs of Shillong and Tura campuses, respectively.
The organisation further said, “Srivastava and the two professors are making moves to scuttle attempts of recovering the University by appointing a qualified and excellent caliber local professor from Meghalaya in line with state’s matrilineal ethos and culture so that future generations of students do not have to suffer misdeeds of an ill-motivated VC”.