By Dr. Lakhon Kma
The appointment of Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla as the new Vice-Chancellor of North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong two months ago marked the end of a fruitless and distasteful regime of SK Srivastava and his cronies, under whose misguidance, the University touched a new low on every front. In his tenure of about 6 years in NEHU, Srivastava has tried and succeeded to a great extent to misguide and manipulate every statutory body of NEHU through his nefarious designs and malafide intentions. With the support cronies with misplaced ambitions, he has destructed and dismantled all set provisions and practices that were necessary for the smooth functioning of the University. He failed to understand and follow the NEHU Act, Statutes and Ordinances in letter and spirit and disregarded established norms and practices in the day-to-day running of the University. The end result was that he was like the most unwanted weed of NEHU Campuses and the State of Meghalaya as a whole. There has never been such an unceremonious exit of a Vice-Chancellor in NEHU as we saw in case of Srivastava which he rightly deserved. In his entire tenure, he practiced and propagated lies and mediocrity at every level and in doing so he was emboldened by some of the bona-fide members of NEHU community which was very unfortunate. While completely vitiating the working and academic environment of NEHU, Srivastava has left several challenges for the new Vice-Chancellor (VC)-Prof. Shukla. Let me dwell upon some of the vital ones.
Firstly, the present VC has to instill and bolster the confidence of faculty in the University’s administration which had eroded during the previous regime. Transparency and accountability have to be accorded utmost priority among the NEHU community. So far, Prof. Shukla seems to be hitting the right notes and working towards improving the working atmosphere of NEHU and gradually gaining the confidence of university’s stake holders. Shunting all those who were hand in glove with the previous VC to damage the reputation of NEHU would send the right signals and some of these names are known to all. Some of them even went to the extent of barging into the residence of a faculty member along with the previous VC to threaten him which was highly uncalled for and unbecoming of the VC and Pro-VC. Such goons should have no place in the functioning of the University or in any democratic system.
Secondly, bringing the students back to the campuses in a phased manner should have been the priority of the incumbent VC taking all due precautions and following SOPs of Covid-19. It’s good to see the VC has taken some initiative in this direction and by the time this article is published, perhaps we will have students in our campuses. Thirdly, the financial discipline has to be enforced in order to strengthen the functioning of NEHU. In an academic institution, the bulk of 70-80% of its funds cannot be spent on non-academic activities such as infrastructure development including its beautification or fortification akin to defence establishments, leaving only about 20% of funds for academic activities as done by the previous VC. Focus has to be on students’ welfare, teaching and research that will improve our stature as a university which will ultimately benefit the community, particularly the State of Meghalaya.
It is time to bring in financial discipline and to demand accountability and transparency in the functioning of the Community College in Wahiajer which was deliberately ignored by the previous VC. The Community College is NEHU’s asset. It’s development should be a concern of all stakeholders of Meghalaya. A white paper is necessary which should be placed before the NEHU community and perhaps the public of Meghalaya on how much money was spent in the last 6 years and what is the outcome from the Community College. It is equally important to know from which Head of Accounts money was diverted to the Community College and if the funds were duly sanctioned and expenditure audited. Similarly, the functioning of the Campus Development Department needs intervention. During the previous VC, it was in the limelight for all the wrong reasons including anomalies in the tendering process, etc. Similarly, the appointment of Chief Vigilance Officer by the previous VC was in gross violation of the criteria and procedure laid down in the Central Vigilance Commission Manual 2017 which has been reiterated by Ministry of Education, Govt. of India. Moreover, the outgoing Vice Chancellor’s dubious roles in the tendering, procurement and recruitment processes raises a big question mark on his neutrality, honesty and integrity which will only harm the reputation of NEHU.
Another big challenge for Prof. Shukla is to complete the filling-up of vacant positions and the promotions of teachers under Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) for different levels. The previous VC has neither completed the promotions nor appointed a single new faculty in NEHU in the last 6 years although there were more than 150 vacant teaching positions. Timely promotions and new appointments will go a long way in motivating the teaching community and strengthening the teaching-learning process. An ideal scenario would be to complete the CAS promotions and filling up of vacant positions every 6 months to reduce the backlogs as stipulated by UGC and the direction of Ministry of Education, Government of India. It is equally important to strengthen the administration by filling up the supporting staff positions.
It will also be a daunting task for Prof. Shukla to improve NEHU’s rank in the National Institutional Ranking Framework which stands at 59 currently. Of course, he had no role to play in the sliding from 15th to 59th position, thanks to gross mismanagement of NEHU for the last 9-10 years and more so in the last 6 years! The previous VC was least bothered about paying attention on improving the ranking, whereas he was largely responsible and contributed immensely in the degradation of NEHU at every level during his tenure. How much the present VC is able to salvage NEHU, only time will tell. Prof. Shukla also has the responsibility to implement the National Education Policy 2020. It will be a huge task to mould our curriculum as per the NEP 2020. While there is a general agreement that the NEP is a game changer, the difficulty is its implementation vis-à-vis the existing curriculum, particularly at the UG/PG levels.
In order to overcome these challenges plaguing NEHU, the new VC has to act swiftly and decisively keeping the welfare of NEHU as a priority. In his endeavour, it is imperative that members of statutory bodies-the Academic Council, Executive Council, University’s Court, Finance Committee and Board of Research Studies, particularly the Executive Council, act responsibly. Certainly, the Associations such as NEHUTA, MeTTA-NEHU, MeCAW, etc. will provide necessary support and the checks and balances in the smooth functioning of NEHU.
I have highlighted only few challenges out of a long list of ills that are staring at the present VC. No doubt, Prof. Shukla has inherited unpleasant challenges, over which he had no choice and which require immediate and simultaneous attention. However, he has all the choices to decide what kind of legacy he would like to build as a VC in the next 5 years. Unlike the previous VC, who treated NEHU as his private enterprise where he was guided by his impulsive nature and whims and fancies of a few, we do hope that the present VC will be different. While the VC can take some time to understand the nitty-gritty of the functioning of a large University like NEHU, he can’t afford to take too long. Five years is too short a time if a person has to restore the credibility of NEHU and make a name as a VC. Five years was too long for someone like Srivastava to do time-passing business and bring shame to the office of VC.
In order to clear the mess created by the previous regime and to move ahead with the rebuilding process, the incumbent VC will certainly need more than a pair of helping hands. This begins with the appointment of Pro-VCs who understand NEHU and command the respect and faith of all stakeholders. To those he can delegate powers and responsibilities to assist him to achieve the goals and aspirations of the NEHU community and the State of Meghalaya at a much faster rate. To this end, a widely accepted name with enough good credentials has been suggested by the majority of the stakeholders which is awaiting its coronation by the VC. We are desperate to see NEHU rise up and build again to its earlier glory and achieve much more in order to benefit the State of Meghalaya in particular, the region and the country in general.
(The author is President of Meghalaya Tribal Teacher’s Association-NEHU (MeTTA-NEHU).