Nilamber Pitamber University Daltonganj is to initiate student feedback in its colleges and departments. It is an initiative to improve and regularise the conduct of the class room teachings and lab based practicals etc. There has always been a fierce accusation of teachers and students bunking classes and practical. It is also said the teachers and the students pass the bucks for this malaise in class room teaching.
It is legitimate to mention here that secretary technical and higher education Rahul Kumar Purwar had written letters to the vice chancellors of the state universities about nearly two months ago to ensure and enforce regular conduct of the classes as well as to obtain feedback to it from the students. Sources said this was a very rare instance when a secretary of state government so wrote straight to the VCs which Purwar did all in the larger academic interest of the students.
Pro vice chancellor Dr Deep Narayan Yadav said he convened a meeting to this effect with Dean Students Welfare Ambalika Prasad, principals I G Khalkho R P Singh, professors in charge Mohini Gupta, Bimal Kumar Singh, C Agrawal and some few incharge / heads of the PG departments this Friday in Yodh Singh Namdhari Mahila college Daltonganj. He said it was resolved first to have a model of student feedback based on some questionairre to be filled by students themselves.
Dr Bimal Kumar Singh professor in charge of the government degree college Manika has been assigned to prepare a blueprint of the student feedback. It would be then placed before the VC Dr Ram Lakhan Singh and Pro VC Dr Deep Narayan Yadav and his team to threadbare discuss and accord approval to it for its circulation among the students of the colleges and PG departments.
Sources said as of now affiliated colleges under this university have not been kept in the loop. The exercise is for the constituent college along with government college like that of Manika degree college. The Pioneer spoke to Dr Bimal Kumar Singh to know as to how he would go about it as students skip campus while teachers do also some vanishing tricks. Dr Singh said there will be simple and fact finding queries which a student is expected to respond to in the feedback without any fear or prejudice.
Sources said the practice of students feedback which is mandated in the NAAC observation of the college or department is not seen as any comment or remark about the service roll of the teacher concerned even in the event of adverse reaction in the student feedback. However sources said there are some very deep issues involved in it. There are teachers in the colleges who are patrons to some important organisations of the students. Again the number of students and their presence in the class rooms are very floating as one who comes today may not be found for days together in the campus or class rooms.
Can such a lot of students who are themselves a major escapee from the class rooms be fit enough to give a feedback on the classes taken or not? This question is now being raised most vocally. Again there are departments where there are admissions in a few hundreds and such a bulk of the students will be hard to put to this practice of the feed back. However sources said despite problems in this exercise, a serious and sincere attempt to call students to give feedback will surely give positive results in the long run as there is a need to own accountability and no stakeholder can afford not to be accountable.
Civil society activists have demanded that the state higher education department ought to be vigilant in regard to teachers and non teaching employees' 'leave status' as applications for long leave are either shortened or made to vanish at all from the office record. A track of leave application, sign on and off online or offline of teachers and non teaching staff and regular inspection of colleges and departments by senior officials of the university may instil fear among the students to return to the class rooms said sources.