The State Assembly amending the Bharathiar University Act, 1981 to include five secretaries of affiliated colleges in the Syndicate marks the fruition of a three-year effort the Association of Self-Financing Arts, Science & Management Colleges of Tamil Nadu had made.
The Association had in December 2018 filed a writ petition before the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the University and State Government to include secretaries of affiliated colleges in the Syndicate to make it a truly representational body and its functioning democratic.
Prior to moving the Court the Association had sent representations to the University to no avail. It was at this juncture that the Association moved the court, said its president Ajeet Kumar Lal Mohan.
Its argument was that the University with a little over 30 departments and around 3,000 students had five representatives in the Syndicate. Whereas, the over 100 affiliated institutions that provided education to thousands of students had no representation in the administrative body.
This was unfair and undemocratic, the Association had argued while seeking to amend the University Act, he said and added that after the High Court allowed the Association petition, the University Senate and Syndicate passed resolutions and the registrar forwarded the same to the State Government.
Mr. Mohan also said that the change in the Syndicate composition was necessary also because the education scenario today in Bharathiar University was not what it was when the latter was established over three decades ago. He added that credit goes to the Government for seeing merit in the Association’s argument.
With the Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy piloting the Bill and Assembly adopting it, a long-pending demand of academics had been fulfilled, he said.
