SHILLONG, Sep 23: In view of the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) sliding to 59th spot in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) under the Ministry of Education published this year, the People’s Democratic Front (PDF) has expressed concern over the present state of affairs of the institute.
In a petition submitted to NEHU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla, on Thursday, PDF general secretary Auspicious L Mawphlang said that the university has witnessed a decline in status and prestige among the central universities in the country in the last few years pointing out at the latest NIRF rankings.
Expressing shock, he said, “The lack of efficiency, vision and dynamic leadership in the past years has resulted in the regressive ranking of the university and affected the higher education in the state”.
On the non-filling up of vacant teaching and non-teaching posts in the institute, the PDF general secretary said that this is one of the most critical issues affecting the students and the university as a whole.
The PDF leader also highlighted the appointment of guest lecturers instead of permanent staff, while claiming that there is lack of accommodation for research scholars.
Pointing out the lack of allocation of funds to academic activities, he said that fund allocation was more towards infrastructure than the academic activities focussing on maintenance of infrastructure rather than boosting and upgrading the academic aspects of the University.
Emphasising on the need to set up job-oriented courses, the PDF general secretary pushed for uplift of various departments such as Fisheries, Geo Informatics System, Forestry, Animal Husbandry, Food Processing, Rural Development etc.
“There is a need to reduce the fee structure of different professional courses offered by the School of Technology in the University so as to provide equal opportunity to the various aspirants of the Northeastern region,” Mawphlang said, flagging the delay in publishing of semester exam results.
The PDF leader suggested that an efficient system needs to be put in place to ensure timely declaration of examination results.
On the setting up of CSIR-NET examination centre, Mawphlang raised concern over problems being faced by students of life science and physical sciences in appearing for National Eligibility Test examination as the closest centre is located in Guwahati, Assam. “It is high time to speed up the process of setting up of the CSIR-NET centre at NEHU,” he added.
