From Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Dec 13: Lok Sabha member from Tura, Agatha Sangma on Monday raised serious concern over high levels of vacancies in central universities including the North-Eastern Hill University and demanded upgradation of the higher educational institutions in the state.
Taking up the matter in the lower house of Parliament during the zero hour, Agatha also demanded opening of more departments in NEHU Tura campus like Science, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. There should be greater intake of students and more assistant professors should be appointed, she demanded.
She also demanded academics in the five existing departments, setting up of a Kendriya Vidyalaya in NEHU Tura, irrigation facilities for the Agriculture department and 24-hour medical unit on campus. Earlier in the day, the Centre had assured her that it has expedited filling of vacancies of teaching posts in central universities and other higher educational institutions in the country, especially in the Northeast, and provided funds for information and communication technology infrastructure.
This was stated by Union Minister of State for Education, Annapurna Devi in her reply to Agatha.
Agatha also questioned whether the government is taking any specific steps to address the shortage of teacher in early childhood education, special education, physical education, music, arts and curricular streams of vocational education. There is a serious gap in the availability and deployment of qualified teachers in the Northeastern states, she said. The Union minister replied that the University Grants Commission continuously monitors the same with universities but the onus of filling up the posts lies on central universities which are autonomous bodies created under Acts of Parliament.
In case of Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, filling up of vacancies is a continuous process and action is taken from time to time as per the provisions of the relevant recruitment rules, the minister said.
The minister further added that to improve information and communication technology infrastructure and provisioning of libraries, UGC has provided funds to all central universities in the Northeast.
