The absence of full-term vice-chancellors is making implementation of the four-year undergraduate programme difficult as the new system requires “academic leadership”, said several teachers, some of them former vice-chancellors.
None of the 31 state-aided universities in Bengal has a full-term VC. Some are being helmed by officiating VCs, but they are unable to provide the “required leadership at this critical juncture”, the teachers said.
Some teachers expressed the fear that the entire academic and administrative system could collapse if the stalemate resulting from a fight between the education minister and governor continued.
The governor is ex-officio chancellor of all state-aided universities.
The academics said higher education institutions were facing “a severe crisis” owing to the absence of full-term VCs in the 31 state-aided universities.
In a press release, they said: “This crisis is accentuated in view of the onset of the academic session in the midst of the admission processes and in the backdrop of introducing components of National Education Policy (NEP).”
The NEP mandates the start of four-year undergraduate programmes, replacing three-year ones.
Om Prakash Mishra, former interim VC of North Bengal University and one of the teachers who issued the statement, said the teachers of 13 universities whom the chancellor has asked to perform the role of VC at their institutions are incapable of providing any academic leadership.
“The introduction of a four-year programme needs overhauling the infrastructure.... Those who have been appointed to perform the duties of VC cannot be considered even as interim VC. They are working on a limited mandate. How can they provide any academic leadership?” Mishra said at a news conference at Calcutta Press Club.
“In the absence of any academic leadership, it is difficult to run a four-year programme on any campus,” said Shibaji Pratim Basu, a former interim VC of Vidyasagar University.
“It is also not clear when the search and selection committees, as mandated by the ordinance passed by the state cabinet and consented to by the chancellor, will be constituted for each of the 31 universities,” Basu said.
“We... request the Hon’ble Chancellor and the Higher Education Department to... overcome the impasse through effective communication and consultation,” the press statement reads.
A forum called “Save University, Save Education”, a platform of teachers’ associations, held another news conference at the same venue and called for the appointment of full-term VCs “without wasting any further time”.
Sanatan Chattopadhyay, secretary of the Calcutta University Teachers’ Association and a member of the platform, said: “One of our teachers has been asked to perform the role of VC at CU. We are unsure of her status. We don’t have a pro-VC (academic) for close to a month. We don’t have a pro-VC (finance) for over two years. We just don’t know who do we talk to... on topics like the NEP. The fight between Raj Bhavan and Bikash Bhavan (education department) is crippling public institutions.”
A day after governor C.V. Ananda Bose asked teachers at some universities to perform the role of VC, education minister Bratya Basu termed the appointments “illegal”. The high court, however, has not stayed the arrangement.
Calls, WhatsApp messages and emails from this newspaper to the chancellor and the education failed to elicit any response.
Santa Datta, who has been asked to perform the role of VC at CU, told Metro: “I am not encountering any difficulty in providing leadership. I have formed a team which is working round-the-clock on any academic and administrative issue.”
“However there is a need to appoint a full-term VC,” she added.