Varsity unrest worries govt

CESS to study ways to distance students from protests

Hyderabad: Worried over the growing incidents of student unrest in the academic environment, the Telangana government is contemplating ways and means to bringing back normalcy as part of streamlining and strengthening the higher education system in the state.

Accordingly, the issue has been placed top on the agenda of the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE). In turn, the TSCHE has roped in the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), to prepare a vision document for the ways and means in the strengthening the higher education system.

Despite all other initiatives, experts have found that students were responding in an undesirable way to various issues of political and social significance in the campuses in the state and it is cause for worry.

TSCHE chairman T Papi Reddy said that university campuses were part of society and it reflects the pulls and pushes going on in the social system.

There was nothing wrong in students discussing even the most controversial of issues and voicing their view. They can even hold protests peacefully in a democratic manner to express their political views.

But what is worrying the authorities is that the students were crossing the ‘Lakhsman Rekha’. “Of late, the universities have been witnessing students’ resorting to physical and direct action in response to various incidents. Some of those incidents have nothing to do with the campus or university or any of their colleges,” he added.

This tendency of the students in taking streets is affecting whatever initiatives being taken by the universities and others related to the higher education. When there is a disturbance on the campus, it was the students who will be losing their valuable academic time. Adding to this, the frequent occurrence of incidents has also led to trust deficit among different stakeholders related to the higher education in the state. They include parents, teachers, students, non-teaching staff as well as the government authorities related to the higher education. This is further lowering the image of the universities and colleges in the State in the public eye.

In some cases, it was only a handful among the students who have been making all the disrupting activities on the campuses. In turn, this is having an adverse impact on entire students’ community and their precious academic time.

It was against this backdrop, the TSCHE has asked the CESS which is preparing a vision document for the higher education in the state to factor this key aspect. As part of this, experts from teaching and education administration will be roped in to figure out ways and means to address these issues.

That apart, the university Vice-Chancellors were asked to hold open sessions with the students on their respective campuses. This was to take stock of their views on the issues disturbing the academic atmosphere causing an adverse impact on the entire student’s community.

All this will form the part of the vision document for the state’s higher education. Then, universities will be asked to follow the guidelines after obtaining the government’s approval, Papi Reddy said.

VRC Phaniharan