Dissatisfaction and unrest among students in the country are products of larger democratisation which resulted in assertion of all issues that concern students, said Furqan Qamar, Secretary General of Association of Indian Universities, who was in the city on Sunday.
Answering questions regarding student protests that had rocked the campuses across the country including University of Hyderabad (UoH), Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Prof. Qamar said such unrest could also be the result of purposelessness, bad living conditions and even a response to burning national issues. The expression of dissatisfaction is a healthy sign of a thriving democracy, he said. The issues and their different aspects can be sorted through dialogue, discussion and decision-making. The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) in its Central Zonal Meet would address these issues to create better academic ambience in varsities.
The Central Zone of AIU includes 109 universities of which 71 are State and 10 Central varsities. In the two-day meet of the Central Zone hosted at MANUU, Vice-Chancellors of 50 universities, including eight from Hyderabad, are expected to attend. “The AIU also supports participation of students in drafting the curriculum. Some universities have already tried and tested this method which has borne good results in securing the confidence of the students,” Prof. Qamar said.
In India, 35 per cent teaching posts are vacant and just 55 per cent are filled with permanent or regular faculty members, AIU records revealed. “The solution is not to fill the posts with temporary or contractual faculty members. This brings down the quality of teaching. Permanent faculty recruitments should speed up,” Prof. Qamar said. Institutions of higher learning should have teacher-student ratio of 1:9 or a minimum of 1:13, he said.
Speaking at a media meet held prior to the AIU conference, Mohammad Aslam Parvaiz, Vice-Chancellor of MANUU, said students who come into institutions of higher learning should realise the practical problems that the administrations face.
