HRD Minister Neera Yadav, Higher and Technical education Department Secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh and Director Balendu Bhushan were in Vinoba Bhave University on Friday to take part in the open dialogue with the students, teachers, principals and officials of the university, first of its kind in the state of Jharkhand to know the ground reality and problems of higher education.
Addressing the gathering HRD Minister Neera Yadav said that the government is pledged to improve the quality of higher education in the state and within next four years major changes will become visible in this field. In next four years we are going to open more than 100 institutions of higher education in the state, 12 model colleges and 11 women’s colleges have already been started.
Secretary Ajay Kumar Singh said that the present government has linked higher education with the Ministry of Science and Technology with a view to make the youth of the state skilled enough to earn their livelihood. Talking on this program he said that now we will go to all universities to know the ground level problems and to get suggestions to solve it.
In this open dialogue students got the opportunity to put their grievances before the minister and officials first. Majority of students said that VBU administration has forcibly burdened them with CBCS system because the number of teachers and staffs required for it are not available in the colleges. Most of the time of the teachers posted in their colleges goes in examination and evaluation work, basic facilities are not available in the colleges, the condition of laboratory, library etc. is not as per the needs of CBCS system.
While putting their grievances some students made some hard comments which irritated the higher education secretary, who lost his cool and ordered to stop the proceeding of the meeting. However Minister Neera Yadav accepted that introduction of CBCS without preparation is a mistake.
After this episode the venue of open dialogue was shifted from Vivekananda Auditorium to Aryabhatta Seminar Hall where they talked with teachers, principals and officials separately. Teachers raised their problems like delay in promotion, fixation of salary, arrear payment etc. Principals also placed the problems like lack of fund for infrastructure development, less number of teachers and staffs etc. Minister and Secretary assured them every possible help from the state government and instructed VBU administration to send proposal for sanctioning new posts.
Higher education officials also enquired about the utilization of funds given to the university earlier and assured to give fund as per demand as soon as possible.