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Opposition unites against HECI replacing UGC at teachers' event at JNUTA

Expressing concerns over the proposed legislation on the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), the leaders unanimously demanded that it should be sent to the parliamentary standing committee on higher education.

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The panellists of the event
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Leaders from several opposition parties put up a show of unity against Centre's proposal of replacing the existing University Grants Commission (UGC) with another higher education regulator at an event organised by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) on Friday.

The first day of JNUTA's two-day 'National Convention on Public Higher Education' witnessed leaders cutting across the political parties including Congress' Member of Parliament (MP) Rajeeb Rajeev Gowda, Trinamool Congress' MP Sugata Bose, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Manoj K Jha, BJP MP Udit Raj, CPI(M) leader Nilotpal Base and former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.

Expressing concerns over the proposed legislation on the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), the leaders unanimously demanded that it should be sent to the parliamentary standing committee on higher education.

"The HECI draft bill should be discussed at length. I am anticipating that it will come to the standing committee. There are issues with the existing UGC that need to be addressed but not by replacing it with another body. One of the major problems with this draft bill is that it hands over all grants related power to the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry that is a surefire recipe of corruption and ideological control," said Gauda.

Calling HECI bill a "comic legislation", Sinha requested all the parliamentarian present at the even to mount pressure of the BJP government against tabling the HECI draft bill in Lok Sabha.

Sinha also expressed solidarity with JNU students alleging that a conspiracy has been hatching against them. "Why JNU is being singled out? Because it gives a space for dissent and we are living in a time when dissent is not allowed," he said.

The leaders also criticised the selection of Reliance group's Jio institute's as an Institute of Eminence. "There is not even a single central university has been recognized as an Institutions of Eminence. But an institute which has no existence yet has been given the tag," said Jha.

Meanwhile, JNUTA's Secretary Sudhir K. Suthar said that they had organised the event outside the University campus because there is no space for debate and discourse at the campus nowadays. "Teachers of the University that was known for its culture of debate and discourse are now forced to come out to hold such an event. What can be more unfortunate than this," he said.

Demands

  • They demanded that HECI draft bill should be sent to the parliamentary standing committee on higher education
  • They agreed that here are issues with the existing UGC that need to be addressed, but not by replacing it with another body
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