The government has warned private unaided colleges that action will be taken against them if they do not adhere to the calendar of events. Though colleges are officially scheduled to start the admission process for the 2021-22 academic year on August 23, many have already completed it.
Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan on Wednesday asked managements of private colleges to follow the government’s calendar of events which states that they can reopen in October as a new syllabus has to be framed under the National Education Policy (NEP). Many college managements, however, have raised objections to the implementation of the NEP this year citing that they have already commenced classes.
Addressing the principals of 300 colleges in Bengaluru during the national seminar, ‘Implementation of NEP-2020-A Road Map’, organised by Bengaluru North University in association with Kristu Jayanti College (Autonomous) on Wednesday, the Minister said, “Many college managements say it is not possible to implement NEP this academic year as they have already completed admissions. But we want to know on what basis they did this even before the admissions calendar was issued by the government.”
He added that this year, every institution must conduct admissions using the Unified University College Management System from August 23.
While principals of many autonomous colleges said that they were not bound to follow the government’s calendar of events, K.R. Venugopal, vice-chancellor, BU, told The Hindu that the autonomous college managements however still have to wait for the State government to come up with the new syllabus in line with the NEP. “So colleges cannot start classes now,” he said.
P. Pradeep, Commissioner, Department of Collegiate and Technical Education, said that NEP focuses on development of skills among students.
