In a first, edu minister chairs meeting of VCs of state varsities

Usually, it’s the Governor of the state, who is also the chancellor of state universities, who deals with university officials or issues such directives.

In a major departure from the past, Bihar’s education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary on Tuesday held a meeting with vice chancellors, registrars and exam controllers of state universities, besides education department officials, and directed them that all pending and backlog undergraduate, postgraduate and vocational exams and results must be cleared by December 2022 so that the academic sessions could be streamlined in the interest of the students.

Bihar education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary holds a meeting of VCs of state universities in Patna on Tuesday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Usually, it’s the Governor of the state, who is also the chancellor of state universities, who deals with university officials or issues such directives.

According to one of the attendees who did not wished to be named, the minister reminded them about the directions issued at a meeting chaired by Governor Phagu Chouhan on September 9, 2021, to clear backlog exams.

Earlier this month, angry students had staged a protest in Darbhanga against delayed academic sessions in Lalit Naraian Mithila University (LNMU).

Days after the angry outburst of students at his office due to derailed academic sessions in most universities, minister Choudhary had taken up the matter with the Chancellor on June 3 and handed him a letter, requesting him to take special initiative in this regard, especially in case of Magadh University (Bodh Gaya) and JP University (Chapra).

“There is need for better coordination between the education department and the universities for the prompt disposal of university matters pending with the department. At the same time, the universities should also quickly provide information sought by the department,” the minister said at the meeting, while asking the universities, including the newly created Pataliputra University, Munger University and Purnea University, to take initiatives for accreditation from the National accreditation and assessment Council (NAAC) and identify vacant positions of principals in colleges and send them to the department with roster clearance.

The minister also asked the VCs to ensure proper teaching and academic atmosphere on the campuses by appointing ad hoc faculty members till regular appointments are made by the Bihar State University Service Commission.

Meanwhile, Federation of University Teachers’ Associations of Bihar ( FUTAB) said the state’s finance department was trying to shift the onus over to universities for delay in disbursement of monthly grants but not reviewing its own clumsy process of scrutiny and clearance of grants to universities. “In the name of comprehensive financial management system (CFMS), the release of grants under salary and pension heads through treasury has failed to be an effective instrument as the bottleneck of utilisation certificate is still being used to delay release of salary/pension in time despite clear directions of chief minister Nitish Kumar to maintain regularity in payments to universities,” said FUTAB working president KB Sinha and general secretary Sanjay Kumar.

“After much hue and cry, the salary and pension grants for March to May were released only a few days back this month,” they said.

The Governor office was not immediately available to comment