Days before the Bari Committee is expected to submit its report on > alleged irregularities at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), 28 senior faculty members of the varsity have written to President Pranab Mukherjee saying that the >inquiry against Vice Chancellor Mohammad Aslam is “a travesty of natural justice.”
The letter sent to Mr. Mukherjee last month in his capacity as Visitor to the varsity alleges that the Ministry of Human Resources Development order for an inquiry led by Central University of Gujarat VC Syed Bari is violative of the IGNOU Act of 1985. Prof. Aslam was asked to go on leave after the inquiry was instituted.
An inquiry was ordered against Prof. Aslam for putting on hold the Community College Scheme, which also catered to the armed forces, and the Convergence Scheme. Currently IGNOU is in the process of clearing the degrees of defence personnel affected by the decision. The signatories of the letter defended these decisions taken by the Board of Management led by him.
It says, “IGNOU became only an instrument for issuing grade cards and certificates... This was done on the basis of marks sent by the community college institutions; the university had no involvement in admissions; conduct of courses and no control on conduct of the examinations.”
It adds that the Convergence Scheme led to the misuse of at least Rs. 25 crores from funds meant for State Open Universities. These were distributed to private institutions without the Planning Commission’s approval.
“Private Trusts and organisations were allowed to identify franchisees/ Colleges of Engineering not recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education to run B.Tech and M.Tech programmes in the name of IGNOU...About 400 memoranda were signed with a large number of unheard of private institutions/organizations. There were permitted to run all kinds of programmes at all levels without following the due statutory processes in areas which IGNOU did not even have expertise,” wrote the professors including physicist Vijayshri and SR Jha, Sociologist Debal Singharoy and Hindi Professor JM Parakh.
They have demanded the MHRD revive the Goverdhan Mehta Committee into the functioning of IGNOU from 2006 to 2011. It was during this period when VN Rajasekharan Pillai was VC that a massive expansion of courses took place. He is currently under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In a separate development, several professors of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi have in an open letter in the Economic and Political Weekly expressed their resentment against the >resignation of Director RK Shevgaonkar last month.
“This disquiet is not, or should not be, limited to the faculty and staff of the IITs but involve all those to whom the integrity and strengthening of our educational systems matter... We strongly feel that there is good reason to believe that the director of IIT Delhi had taken a principled and courageous stance and should be supported in his attempt to resist the various kinds of undue pressure reported by all sections of the press,” they wrote.
