SHILLONG, Aug 1: Thousands of students pursuing their undergraduate studies across colleges in Meghalaya are in a spot of bother with the Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association taking on the North-Eastern Hill University over the implementation of the National Education Policy, 2020.
The MCTA on Tuesday launched an indefinite non-cooperation movement in protest against NEHU’s decision to implement the NEP from August 1 and boycotted the first semester classes after alleging that the NEHU’s decision disregarded appropriate processes of decision-making. It, however, decided that the classes of third and fifth semesters will be attended by its members.
MCTA general secretary, Airpeace W Rani said they are not against the implementation of NEP, but they oppose the process and procedure through which the policy is being put into place.
He said they can foresee the implications if the policy is implemented by not following proper procedure. He further said he cannot spell out MCTA’s future course of action since its executive committee will need to meet, discuss and then, take a call on the next steps.
Rani said they fully understand that their non-cooperation movement is going to affect the students.
“But, at the same time, we have to understand that such important policy matters need to be properly deliberated upon since they will have positive and negative ramifications. We also need to discuss the views and concerns of the colleges before going ahead with such an important policy,” he said.
He said the association is not happy with Vice Chancellor, Prof Prabha Shankar Shukla who claimed that a decision to implement NEP was taken during the 110th meeting of the Academic Council. He said this is not true.
“It is for this reason that we had asked the VC to withdraw the notification issued on July 12 since it was misleading,” the MTCA general secretary said.
Meanwhile, the Sankardev College started conducting classes for the first semester students of four-year undergraduate programme as per NEP, 2020 from Tuesday while the Lady Keane College decided to temporarily suspend the classes of the first semester in view of the conflict between NEHU and MCTA over NEP.
Sankardev College principal, Dr Eureka FP Lyngdoh said they decided to go ahead with the first semester classes taking into account the interest of students.
“We had begun the preparation to implement NEP even before the notification was issued by the university on July 12. We had conducted counseling with the students on the new policy after receiving the notification,” Lyngdoh said. According to her, the teachers were actively involved in the preparation of the routine, allotment of room and especially, helping students in the selection of subjects. She said the first semester classes were taken by teachers who are not MCTA members.
Lyngdoh, who is also the president of Meghalaya College Principal Council (MCPC), said the council took the lead in apprising the state government about some standalone institutions which are not ready to go ahead with NEP’s implementation.
She said they had raised the issue before Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma as well as Education Minister Rakkam A. Sangma.
The MCPC president also said they had told the NEHU VC and the education minister why many institutions were not able to implement NEP.
According to her, the MCPC, in its meeting held on July 18, decided not to pursue the issue since the notification for NEP’s implementation was addressed to individual colleges. She said even the principals of the standalone colleges found that it is very difficult to implement the policy after going through the guidelines.
Lyngdoh said the standalone colleges were ready to clarify to the university why they were not able to implement NEP. She revealed that during the meeting with the VC, majority of the principals agreed to implement NEP from August 1.
“There were a few colleges which expressed their inability to implement it immediately,” Lyngdoh said.
Lady Keane College principal, DKB Mukhim said their institute is keen on implementing NEP from the current academic session.
Mukhim said the college set up its NEP committee last November and since then, it has been working hard on the various needs of NEP.
“I have also been telling my colleagues that there should be uniformity in the implementation of NEP. It will be better for the state if we have uniform implementation of NEP,” he said.
He said the college has decided to suspend the classes of the first semester for a few days with the hope that MCTA and NEHU will find a way out to end the current impasse.
“I will review again on Saturday. But I would like to see the classes for the first semester students to start from next Monday, either with NEP or the old system,” he added.
