Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Thursday urged the Union Education Ministry to immediately withdraw the University Grants Commission’s new regulation 2025 on appointing vice-chancellors of universities, a move which was against the fundamental principle of the Constitution and federalism, it said.
It can harm the higher education system of Tamil Nadu, the resolution passed with the support of all political parties, including the PMK, an ally of the BJP, said. The Opposition AIADMK, too, backed the DMK and its allies on the resolution.
BJP leader Nainar Nagendran, however, opposed, saying it was unacceptable since only the draft resolutions were released. “There is time till February 5 to offer suggestions and recommendations. We can’t accept it,” Nagendran said, and staged a walkout from the House accompanied by his party legislators.
Piloting the resolution, Chief Minister M K Stalin said the new draft UGC regulations 2025 (released by Union Education Minister Dharmedra Pradhan in New Delhi on January 6) empowering Governors in the appointment of VCs would ‘ruin’ universities.
The draft guidelines have been formulated on the basis of the National Education Policy, 2020. Among the suggestions was revising the selection process for Vice-Chancellors with expanded eligibility criteria with transparency.
“We do not accept it. It is not right, and not proper to give more powers to the Governors to appoint Vice-Chancellors arbitrarily…This should be considered an attempt to usurp the rights of states which raised the universities with their own resources,” Stalin said speaking on the resolution.
Also, the move was against the fundamental principle of the Constitution and federalism besides amounted to interfering in the rights of states belittling the state governments elected by the people, he claimed. Only the duly elected government should have the power over education and in appointing the Vice-Chancellors, the CM argued.
He accused the Centre of refusing to make any efforts to rein in the private universities that were charging exorbitant fees, reducing allocation for higher education in its budget, not setting up of new central institutes of higher education in Tamil Nadu, and failing to take steps to fill the statutory teaching posts of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes in higher education institutions like IIT.
“Trying to bring universities under its full control is malicious and selfish. This attempt was not being made with the welfare of the students in mind or to improve the quality of education,” Stalin said.
He cautioned that Tamil Nadu, with the largest number of educational institutions in the country, would not remain calm if its autonomy was taken away, but would protect education and future generations. The government would approach court if the Union government did not change its mind after this resolution, he further said.
Seeking the rollback of the draft regulation, the resolution said the draft guidelines were likely to affect the strong higher education system created in Tamil Nadu on the principle of social justice.
“It will seriously affect the future of the youth of Tamil Nadu. Hence, this Assembly unanimously urges the Union Education department to immediately withdraw these draft guidelines of the University Grants Commission,” the resolution said.
