Support and save higher education in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, urge students

Protesting against the education policies of the Union Government, students supported by their parents and politicians, on the call of ‘Joint Action Forum Against Deemed University’ staged their protest peacefully by taking out a joint candle light march, late Wednesday evening, amidst heavy guard of the police, demanding establishing of a Central University which would be a catalyst for the development of Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

The Central University through an act of Parliament, is the need of the hour for Andaman & Nicobar Islands. It has more autonomy than a deemed-to-be-university, in delivering quality higher education, voiced the all-party protest marchers. Expressing their doubts, the group of protesting students said that the deemed-to-be-university may not have a full-fledged autonomy in dealing with the creation of teaching and non-teaching posts, new courses and programmes, establishment of new departments and centres of excellence, as compared to the Central University.

It will not only lack funds in order to manage its day to day affairs as compared to the regular funding received by Central University, but it will also lack in the grant of affiliation to the colleges in their respective jurisdiction. The Central University has more recognition and reputation than deemed-to-be-university. Students belonging to Central University will have wider opportunities to collaborate on their course with students from global institutions.

This will not only enable the Central University students to discover their innate potentialities but also will pave the way for honing their learning skills and research aptitude from the international exposure, said a protesting parent, adding that the National Education Policy 2020 advocates towards a more holistic and interdisciplinary perspective in higher education, it speaks about more about autonomy for the Higher Educational Institutions and not to the merger of colleges to much inferior Deemed to be University.

Central University will be in a better position to achieve this milestone before 2030 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where people face geographical isolation and transportation difficulties as compared to those in mainland. Flared with anger, another protesting student said that the Andaman and Nicobar Administration have decided to convert the Andaman Nicobar Islands Legal Education Society (ANILES) into Andaman Nicobar Islands Education Society (ANIES) to establish a deemed-to-be-university in Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair).

The ANILES society will be governed and managed by senior-level bureaucrats; however, the Central University will be managed by eminent professors who are experts in their fields. If a society is registered specifically for the establishment of a deemed-to-be university, it may not have full autonomy to govern its own academic activities. The Central Universities are providing a monthly fellowship to all eligible students after getting admission into various departments of the university, while the deemed-to-be-universities will not pay at par with the Central Universities in India.

The infrastructural facilities also differ greatly between the Central Universities and deemed-to-be-university as Central Universities have state-of-the-art facilities with excellent library access, both in online and offline resources, sufficient hostel facilities for both boys and girls, 24X7 Wi-Fi-enabled campus, 24X7 reading room and other amenities which are lacking in deemed to be Universities in India, said a parent.

Ironically, all the colleges, be it Jawaharlal Nehru Rajkeeya Mahavidyalaya (JNRM), Andaman Law College, Andaman College (ANCOL), Andaman and Nicobar Islands Institute of Medical Sciences (ANIIMS), Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Institute of Technology (DBRAIT), Tagore Government College of Education (TGCE) and Mahatma Gandhi Government College (MGGC), which are presently affiliated to Pondicherry University, are mostly managed by temporary posts, and a significant proportion of sanctioned teaching and non-teaching posts are lying vacant. As a result, most of the colleges in Andaman & Nicobar Islands lack infrastructural facilities such as insufficient classrooms,  lack of modern library, insufficient hostel accommodation, lack of free Wi-Fi to students, no proper playground and lack of proper canteen facilities.

Furthermore, DBRAIT, a lone engineering college, has been under de-affiliation from 2019 to till to date from Pondicherry University due to a lack of such facilities and many more. In such a scenario, if the existing colleges are brought under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Education Society (ANIES), run as a deemed-to-be-university, it will further deteriorate the quality of higher education in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, as expressed by a student who wants to undertake higher professional education to compete with the rest of the students of the country.

All the stakeholders of higher education in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, including students, teachers, parents and academicians, strongly oppose the merger of all the existing colleges under the deemed-to-be-university governed by a Society. According to the Pondicherry University Act (1985), colleges in the jurisdiction of Andaman and  Nicobar Islands have to be affiliated to Pondicherry University only till any amendments to its effect.

Therefore, until an amendment is passed to dis-affiliate all colleges from Pondicherry University, the merger of all colleges of Andaman and Nicobar Islands presently affiliated to Pondicherry Central University with the proposed inferior deemed university will not serve any purpose. It will be a suicidal step for the higher educational system of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Either continuation with Pondicherry Central University or a new Central University will only be the right move to be established in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, said a retired professor, adding that while most of the Union Territories in India have a Central University or a State University but we do not have any university. When the Central Government proposed to set up a Central University in Ladakh, why not in the Andaman and Nicobar islands? The present population of Ladakh is approximately 2.80 lakhs only, while in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, it is around 5.5 lakhs.

Considering our geographical isolation, social and educational backwardness, people are forced to migrate to the mainland for quality higher education, costing a huge sum of money. Where would the poor people go? If a Central University is established at Andaman and Nicobar Islands, it will give a fillip and solace to the youth in general and overall development of these Islands.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Institute of Higher Learning is the proposed deemed-to be-university to be established in Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the Union Government but at what and whose cost, said a retired officer, adding that the Andaman and Nicobar Administration, did not have any formal written approval given by the Ministry as well as UGC for deemed-to-be-university under DE-NOVA category, then on what grounds the establishment of deemed-to-be-university was announced by the Prime Minister on December 30, 2018 at Netaji Subhash Stadium, Sri Vijaya Puram.