Date:28/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/28/stories/2007112859340100.htm

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Vacancies in aided colleges to be filled

Staff Reporter

Advisory panel’s first meeting held

Government urged to contribute to scholarship fund
VS for social control over private institutions

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government will take urgent steps to fill vacancies of teachers in aided colleges in the State, Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan has said.

Inaugurating the first meeting of the advisory council of the State Higher Education Council here on Tuesday, he said the council had requested that the government make a contribution to the proposed Rs.100-crore higher education scholarship fund.

Even though the State had financial constraints, the government would view this request in a favourable light, the Chief Minster said.

If the balanced growth the State was able to achieve in the general educations sector was to be replicated in the higher education sector, public funding of this sector should go up. Steps should be taken to strengthen government and aided institutions. The first thing to be ensured was that there was enough number of teachers in these colleges. Vacancies in the government sector had been filled. However, there were vacancies in the aided sector due to the freeze in appointments put in place by the previous government, Mr. Achuthanandan said.

Legislation

Though the role of the private sector in higher education could not be ignored, there was a need for some social control over such institutions. It was with this view that the government brought in a comprehensive legislation to regulate the private self-financing professional sector. Unfortunately, some provisions of the Act had to be annulled due to the action of the courts.

Scholarship

All students in the State should be in a position to go for higher education. The only way to ensure this was to institute need-based scholarships.

It was with this aim that the Higher Education Council had announced a scholarship fund. Such a fund would also help put an end to existing inequalities in the higher education sector and the neglect of core areas of study, he added.

Education Minister M. A. Baby; Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy; Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran; Law Minister M. Vijayakumar; Vice-Chairman of the State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik; educationist U. R. Ananthamurthy, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G. Madhavan Nair; sportsperson P.T. Usha; and State Women’s Commission chairperson D. Sreedevi participated.