INVC NEWS
Shimla,
The aim of the government is to provide quality higher education to the students in far-flung areas and to achieve the same many colleges have been opened in remote areas of the State which has led to quantum jump in number of colleges said Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh while presiding over the two days UGC assisted National Conference on ‘Issues and Challenges in Higher Education’ organised by Himachal Government College Teachers Association (HGCTA), here today.
At present, we have 18000 schools and as many as 94 colleges in the State including five Sanskrit colleges said he adding that the government had made a provision of rupees five crore for each college initially and also made mandatory that each college will have its own building and other required paraphernalia.
The girls of the State living in remote areas would have been bereft of education if colleges and schools would not have been opened in these areas, he said.
By taking educational institution to remote areas, the girl child has been the biggest beneficiary, he said and there were more girls enrolled in these colleges as compared to boys, said Chief Minister. To strengthen the educational infrastructure, the government was committed to provide all basic facilities in newly opened colleges and schools, he added.
The Chief Minister said that however, the strength of the teachers was not as less as the picture was being shown as the strength of the staff has to be according to the number of students in such institutions.
I am sure in coming days, the strength of students will increase more in the colleges in remote areas, he said. The staff would also be increased as the number of students will increase. There was no shortage of funds as far as education sector was concerned. “Education is my top priority and I will constitute a committee to look into the demands”, he said.
Talking about RUSA, the Chief Minister said that any new reforms when being brought in society creates teething problems and he was hopeful that few changes, modifications or rectifications can be thought of. He said he is quite liberal and will look into the problems the teachers were facing in the field, but before all this lets get together to make this system a success.
He assured to look into the demands sympathetically.
The Chief Minister also released a souvenir on the occasion.
The HGCTA also presented a cheque of Rs. One lakh towards the Chief Minister Relief Fund.
Prof B S Dahiya, former Vice Chancellor of Kurukshetra University, in his keynote address said that where-ever there were challenges there would be issues and wherever there would be issues there would be challenges so every society has its own needs and to fulfill them there were ancient times when the purpose of education was to produce warriors and soldiers, during medieval times the purpose was to produce educated scholars and litterateurs and modern times the education has become secular and scientific.
Presently, business and technology dominates, business is leading force today and technology has become subsidiary, he said, adding that the real purpose of education was forgotten. Education is just termed as a medium of job anywhere but it has no meaning if it cannot provide a reputable job to the youth, he said.
Questioning that are we producing better human beings, he said that it was an issue to introspect as the purpose of education was not merely teaching, he said adding that even an uneducated person can do that. For the new generation education means a medium to get a suitable job but certainly hence business and technology has overtaken education.
Pro- Chancellor, APG, University, Shri Ashwani Kumar, while speaking on the occasion said that the higher education is facing challenges not only in Himachal Pradesh but all states were facing problems in implementing RUSA. The controller of examination were struggling to declare results in time, the high school teachers are complaining that the students of class nine don’t know what exam were.
Many teachers were complaining about implementation of RUSA, not RUSA itself was complicated, he said.
There were three main issues our higher education sector was facing and they are quality, costs and quantity. If we want to provide quality education we need to incur enough finances to do that and the cost variant is at the centre to balance between quality and quantity. The highest challenge before RUSA was to maintain equilibrium between quantity and quality.
General Secretary, Shri Ram Lal Chauhan, placed the demands before the Chief Minister, the main being withdrawal of notification of 26/3/14 with respect to 26 hours teaching work load/week for a college teacher, to convene DPC for awarding the time scales/grades has not been convened since long, to evolve the new Performa at the earliest and remove all confusions with respect to ACR and API based Proforma for promotions, notional incremental benefits under which Notional incremental benefits need to be provided as and when regularisation is done so that the late entry into service and five years of
service during contract period is properly accounted for, all the teachers should be regularised as and when they complete five years of their services, Increase in the salary of commission appointee teacher at par with their counterparts in the department of technical education, New recruitment of teachers in colleges according to RUSA document, M.Phil. / PhD advance increments etc.
Earlier, President HGCTA, Prof. Rajesh Yadav formally welcomed the Chief Minister and also placed forth several demands of the Association.
The HGCTA office bearers honoured the Chief Minister and other distinguished guests.
Vice –Chancellor, HPU, Prof. A.D.N Bajpai, President Delhi University Teachers Association, Prof. Nandita Narayan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, HPU, Shri Rajinder Singh Chauhan, Director, Higher Education, Shri Dinkar Burathoki, Prof. Ashok Burman were also present on the occasion amongst professors from all the colleges of the State.
