Educationists against ordinance for dissolving senates and syndicates

Mamata Banerjee government’s attempt to overhaul the higher education system in the state got a severe jolt as some prominent educationists protested against the recent ordinance issued by the government.

The government has issued an ordinance on November 3 to bring radical changes in the existing university act. By this ordinance, the government has done away with the democratic structure of the university administrative bodies. The government made its objective clear by saying that with this ordinance it aimed to make the universities free from political interferences.

With the issuance of the ordinance the elected syndicates and senates stood dissolved in all the 13 state run universities in West Bengal.

On Sunday, a section of educationists under the banner of Teachers and Scientists against Maldevelopment (TASAM) has issued a statement opposing this ordinance, which according to them would not cause good to the higher education system.

Interestingly, the opposition came from those educationists who have been steadfastly supporting the new government and were very critical of the erstwhile Left government.

Prof. Avi Dutta Majumdar, Bhaskar Gupta, Bhaswati Chakraborty, Ashokendu Sengupta and some others are signatory to the statement on behalf of TASAM. Ashokendu Sengupta is also a member of the expert group formed a few months back by the new government to give directions to the state higher education department in bringing reforms to restructure the university and college education system.

But it is learnt reliability that the draft and the content of the ordinance were not discussed in the meetings of the expert group. Earlier the teachers, non-teaching employees were represented in university senate and syndicate by their elected members. Now, the ordinance has eliminated the role of the students and non-teaching staffs in those bodies. Also, it has done away with the earlier system of choosing members through elections, and made provisions for nominating the teachers and other educationists in senate and syndicates.