Chennai: Vice-Chancellors (V-C) of state universities in Tamil Nadu Friday stayed away from the annual vice-chancellors’ conference presided over by Governor R.N. Ravi, with the latter alleging that the state government “warned” the V-Cs against participating.
Speaking at the conference at the Raj Bhavan in Nilgiris district, Ravi alleged that the special branch of the Tamil Nadu Police had warned some state university V-Cs.
“As of now, one of our V-Cs is at the police station and some vice-chancellor has reached Ooty and something unprecedented has happened, that has never happened before. There was a midnight knock at their doors and the secret police, special branch of the state, told them ‘if you participate in the conference, you will not be able to go home and meet your family’. I advised them to take care of their family,” Ravi alleged.
According to sources in the higher education department, of 22 state universities in Tamil Nadu, the V-C of Salem Periyar University, R. Jagannathan, and that of Tirunelveli Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, N. Chandrasekar, had planned to participate in the conference.
However, Jagannathan was summoned by the Salem police to appear for an inquiry Friday in connection with a case registered against him for allegedly misappropriating public funds and establishing a private company under his name inside the campus. Periyar University instead sent two directors as representatives to the conference.
“Chandrasekar had headed to the conference but returned to Tirunelveli Friday morning without participating in the event,” a source told ThePrint.
An official from the governor’s office said that of the 52 invitees, that included V-Cs of private, state and central universities, more than 30 participated in the conference.
“The exact numbers will be known at the end of the conference, since some of the state universities have sent their representatives instead of the V-C,” the official told ThePrint.
A senior official in the state higher education department, who did not wish to be named, said it was the call of the V-Cs to attend the conference or not, and the department had not sent them any circulars in this regard. According to the Raj Bhavan, the conference was meant to foster collaboration, share best practices and explore innovative approaches to higher education in a rapidly evolving academic landscape.
The development comes days after the Supreme Court earlier this month ruled that bills pertaining to universities, re-adopted by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and pending with the President, were deemed to have been granted assent. Among the bills that were deemed to have been granted assent, there were also bills that granted powers to the state to appoint V-Cs to state universities. This bill was earlier held by the governor.
DMK spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan said it wasn’t the governor’s job to dictate terms to universities funded by the state. “The state government is the head of state universities and not the Governor. He cannot tell us what we have to keep in the curriculum. The conference itself is in violation of the recent Supreme Court order, which has confirmed that the state government has the power to appoint vice-chancellors,” he asserted.
At the conference, Ravi said that some state university V-Cs had given him in writing that the state government (led by the DMK) “warned” them against attending the event.
“Unfortunately, state universities are not participating, they have informed me, even in writing, that they have been warned by the state government not to participate. This conference is for improvement of quality and there is no politics in it. But, people in the government are not comfortable with it,” Ravi said.
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‘Poor state of education’
At the conference, Ravi welcomed the gathering in Tamil, and proceeded to slam the state of education in Tamil Nadu.
Referring to the Annual Status of Education Report, he said that half the students in high schools were not able to read Class 2 subjects properly and half of the students were not able to recognise two-digit numbers between 11 and 99.
“This scenario has continued in state universities in higher education as well. We need to improve the quality of education. The state’s gross enrolment ratio is over 50 percent and the state produces over 6,500 PhDs every year. But, of the 6,500, not even 1 percent are NET JRF (National Eligibility Test-Junior Research Fellowship) qualified,” he said.
He also claimed those who have earned PhD degrees are doing menial jobs in the state.
“Our PhDs are doing menial jobs, even cleaning jobs. It’s not that cleaning jobs are bad, but, after PhD, if you are doing cleaning jobs for Rs 14,000 and Rs 15,000, it is not a happy situation,” he said.
He also claimed that there was a decline in the quality of education in government schools.
“As Chancellor of University (state universities) in 2021, when I met the students, including a gold medallist (referring to toppers), I found their aspirations very low. Even the gold medallists were aspiring to somehow get a government job in the grade of Class II and Class III. It was not a comfortable scenario,” Ravi said.
“We came to know that we have two parallel streams of education in the state. One vertically going up, and the other one progressively declining. Private schools are progressing upward and government schools are declining,” he said.
He also said that there were constraints in improving the quality of education in universities. “We realised that the state universities are not communicating among themselves. They are working in separate zones under the secretariat,” Ravi said.
Speaking at the conference, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar said that PhD research should not just be on paper, but should focus on solving people’s real issues. “Youngsters should be given education, which is important for the development of the country. The national education policy has the features that would develop the country,” he said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)