SHILLONG, Aug 10: NEHU Vice Chancellor, Prabha Shankar Shukla on Thursday said the university is ready to go back on its decision to implement the National Education Policy 2020 if majority are unwilling to support it, but also warned that students would be the ultimate loser without the NEP.
“We are pushing for the implementation of the NEP since it is the students who are going to benefit from the decision. But we cannot implement the new policy until and unless we have the support of each and every stakeholder,” Prof Shukla told reporters.
He also said he cannot invite the Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association (MCTA) for talks since they do not come under the jurisdiction of the university.
Prof Shukla said members of the MCTA were supposed to meet him along with the NEHUSU and HYC members.
“But they did not turn up,” the NEHU VC said.
When it was pointed out that MCTA was demanding a meeting of the Academic Council (AC) to deliberate on the NEP, he said there is a procedure and system to convene the meeting of the AC since it is a constitutional body.
He made it clear that only the members of the AC can attend the meeting and not everyone.
“But even without the AC meeting, I am ready to discuss with anyone about the NEP,” he said.
He reiterated that the mandate of the AC is not to take decisions on implementation of the policy since its role is restricted only to framing rules and others.
He further claimed that all the pressure groups including NEHUSU, KSU, FKJGP and HYC are convinced after meeting him that the decision to implement NEP was in the interest of the students.
He also made it clear that NEHU was ready to provide any support to colleges to implement NEP except the funding part.
Asked to react to the MCTA’s remark that he was pushing for the NEP just to please his political masters in Delhi, he said they are free to make any comment.
Clarifying that he had never stated that the NEP would be implemented in hybrid mode, Prof Shukla said that he had only stated that the university would like to give a chance to the colleges in case they are not able to implement it from this academic session.
Asked about the common meeting with all stakeholders as per his assurance to both the NEHUSU and HYC, he said the state government is likely to conduct a meeting with the stakeholders on August 14.
‘It would be better for the government to call this meeting since the colleges are under their jurisdiction,” Prof Shukla added.
