By H Srikanth
NEHU is again on the burn. The teachers, students, staff and civil society organizations have come out in the open, raising their voices. Not a day passes without some press statements, meetings, resolutions, demonstrations and other forms of protest in the University. Although the controversial recruitment and the acts of omission and commission of the Registrar and Deputy Registrar have become the immediate rallying point, the issues that NEHU confront are much more complex and deserve a holistic look.
The present regime of Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla, in fact, started on a promising note. After the six years of misrule by Prof. S.K. Srivastava and his coterie, everyone aspired for a change. Prof. Shukla made the right moves in the beginning by disassociating himself from the old coterie and holding meetings with all stakeholders. He listened to everyone patiently for hours and sought suggestions to improve the system. Prof. Shukla promised he would address all long pending issues in a time bound manner. In fact, he held Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) interviews for faculty and even held interviews for the open faculty positions, which were pending for over a decade. Different associations trusted him and cooperated with him for the first two years. They expected that other issues such as filling the non-teaching positions, improving the infrastructural facilities for students, completing the interviews for senior professors, etc., would be addressed soon. Had the administration taken up these tasks in the first three years, the VC could have amassed considerable goodwill and enabled him to take up other agenda in the next two years. But somewhere the administration lost direction.
Obsessed with implementing the NEP 2020 at the PG and UG levels, the VC directed his energies to push it without considering the difficulties of the teachers and the UG colleges. He took it as a prestige issue and sought to enforce the Four Year Undergraduate Programme( FYUP) somehow without discussing in and taking approval from the Academic Council (AC). It was then that he had a confrontation with the Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association (MCTA) and NEHU Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA). Despite the violation of the ordinance, the AC cleared the implementation of the FYUP considering the difficulties faced by the students. But the VC did not take the opposition he had to encounter in the AC in the right spirit. He denied Deanship to a professor who was critical of the NEP 2020, and reappointed a person who served the office earlier as the Dean, ignoring many other qualified professors who have better academic records. Distancing himself from senior colleagues, the VC relied excessively on deans and select teachers. Direct access that the heads and faculty members had with the VC stopped, as the administration insisted on everything to be processed through the deans. Positive interactions between the VC and the teaching community became minimal and superficial.
Meanwhile, the problems of the non-teaching staff have multiplied over the years. Many officers have retired from service, but there was no recruitment and internal promotion for years. Because of limited staff, the quality of administrative work in different departments was severely affected. The non-teaching association is demanding from the University to fill in the staff vacancies. But there is not sufficient staff in the administration even to process the applications for recruitment. Similarly, the students have their own grievances and demands regarding the infrastructure, grading and other facilities. In such circumstances, it would have helped the university had the VC not delayed the appointment of officers who have the experience of working in academic institutions. But Prof. Shukla considered a bureaucrat more efficient than an academician, and appointed Col. Omkar Singh first as the Controller of Examinations (COE), and then as the Registrar. It may not be that the Colonel does not have required academic qualifications and experience to hold the post. But such persons become misfits in the public academic institutions where teachers and students resent bureaucratic ways of functioning. All these years, in NEHU, the officers are easily accessible to the stakeholders. Not knowing the tradition, the Registrar seems to have behaved in a manner that ruffled the teachers and students, leading to the demand for his expulsion.
The continuous decline in ranking of the University is another point of contention agitating the minds of everyone in NEHU. Initially, people were made to believe that implementing the NEP would improve the ranking. But the hurried implementation of the NEP did not help in the ranking. For, the University ranking depends on multiple factors. Two important causes cited for the poor ranking of the University are inadequate academic publications and poor peer perceptions. It is necessary to probe why a University formerly acknowledged as the University with the Potential for Excellence some fifteen years ago has come to this status today. Many academically inclined senior professors in different departments retired. But the positions they vacated were not filled for years. Some professor positions which became vacant in 2005 have remained vacant till date for different reasons. Failing to hold CAS interviews for promotions at regular intervals and rectify anomalies in the date of promotion also demotivates the teachers. It may be true that a few teachers who have little academic ambitions stopped publishing after becoming professors. But there are also professors who kept doing good work. Many retired from service without securing recognition as senior professors. When the teachers find that they have little opportunity to grow, their interest in academics diminishes. Other factors such as abrogation of UGC-SAP, cut in the allocations, non-availability of funds for research, seminars, laboratories, books, etc., also have an indirect effect on the academic performance of the departments and the faculty.
Peer perceptions about the University depend partly on performance and partly on how the University could project itself at national and international levels. A public university cannot adopt dubious methods that private universities follow to gain popularity. It can change peer perceptions only through positive means by creating vibrant academic and creative interactions. That requires more and more offline lectures, seminars, workshops and conferences where the university students and faculty can meet and interact with their peers from other universities and states. It is over a cup of tea and breakfast that the peers come to know about others’ research and publications. We can leave a positive impression about us only when others know us and interact with us. Unfortunately, the UGC’s cut in funds for such academic interactions becomes an obstacle to improve the public perceptions about the University. In the name of austerity measures, the University has stopped even inviting the external experts to the Board of Studies and School Board meetings. Even the Ph.D. viva-voce are conducted in recent years online through Google meet.
The University has completed 50 years of its existence. NEHU could have celebrated the Golden Jubilee Celebrations in 2023-24 in a befitting manner. We could have invited all former VCs, teachers, alumni and other important stakeholders in the country and in the region, and had brainstorming sessions on what NEHU should do. Unfortunately, the Golden Jubilee year just passed by without a murmur. Barring a couple of cultural events, non-academic talks, and sports events, nothing memorable happened during the Golden Jubilee Year. NEHU could not even hold the Convocation that year as we kept waiting for politicians to grace the occasion, but our celebrities in Delhi were busy with general elections and had no time for NEHU. As such, NEHU missed a golden opportunity to involve all stakeholders and for rebuilding its image as a premier institution in the region.
It is said there are a thousand and one reasons for the death of Karna, a mythical anti-hero character in the epic, the Mahabharata. What is happening in NEHU today should be viewed as the culmination of factors and events involving different actors – past and present. All the dissatisfaction and disappointments accumulated over a period of time are now taking the form of public protests. True, the VC is not responsible for everything. But he also cannot disown his responsibility. If the stalemate continues for long it is not good for the stakeholders. In times of crises, we often miss the woods for the trees, and misdirect our energies on secondary issues. Hope, good sense prevails and the contending parties focus on the basic issues; enter a dialogue and address the core problems. It is everyone’s responsibility to bring NEHU back on the right path.
(Prof H. Shrikant is a senior faculty of NEHU)