Govt to meet VCs on May 9 on reforms

Siddharth Prabhakar

Chennai:





Faced with an administrative crisis, the higher education department has called a meeting on May 9 with all vice-chancellors and senior officials of all 13 universities under its control. The meeting will review implementation of anti-ragging measures, functioning of anti-sexual harassment committees, placement of students and examination reforms. Implementation of anti-plagiarism software and digitsation of PhD tracking will also be discussed, sources said. At the meeting, higher education minister K P Anbalagan is likely to review implementation of projects announced under rule 110 of TN assembly .

University officials will be asked to present the best practices and schemes followed by them which can be replicated in other institutions, a source said.

Almost all universities are under the scanner, with audit reports and teacher associations bringing up irregularities in appointments and procedures followed. On the other hand, the go vernment is trying to clean the financial mess of the overstaffed Annamalai University by redeploying excess staff throughout the state.

The government has stopped universities from recruiting staff till the excess Annamalai university staff are redeployed. “The meeting will discuss the vacancies in teaching and non-teaching posts in universities and how to fill them in a proper manner,“ a source said. Appointing fulltime registrar and controller of examinations in nine universities will be the key issue.

Improper conduct of syndicate meetings will be taken up. “A 7-day notice period should be given and VCs will be told to avoid placing any subject requiring finance committee approval in the syndicate directly ,“ the source said.