People's Democracy

PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS

  SFI To Campaign For Central Law

MEETING on April 25-26, the central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India has decided to organise an intensive campaign, demanding a central legislation after the Supreme Court judgement on the process of admission to professional institutions.

SFI president K K Ragesh and general secretary Kallol Roy announced it at a press conference in Delhi on April 28.

They said the Supreme Court verdict in the T M A Pai Foundation vs State of Karnataka case denies admission to professional colleges for the economically and socially weaker students. In many states, private unaided professional institutions have already announced that they would increase the fee by 300 to 500 per cent. They are also demanding that the existing central admission process be undone. This will lead to a situation where merit and reservation will be replaced by money power as the sole criterion for admission. The SFI says it is against the basic constitutional directive to the state to ensure equal access to all in education.

The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has issued a circular of guidelines for admission to private unaided engineering colleges. It has directed that admissions be given solely according to the central admission process and that the reservation policy be followed. But neither the state governments nor professional institutions are implementing it. The SFI demanded immediate implementation of the AICTE guidelines. It further demanded that other monitoring bodies for professional institutions like the MCI, DCI and NCTE also issue similar guidelines as interim relief. It is, however, for the parliament to enact a suitable legislation to ensure that merit and reservations are adhered to in the admission process.

The other demands the SFI has put forward are as below: (1) transparency in admission to private educational institutions and adherence to merit and reservation principles; (2) suitable legislation to ensure access of education to economically and socially deprived students, and an immediate ordinance to the effect as interim relief; (3) implementation of AICTE guidelines in admissions to engineering colleges; and (4) stop to commercialisation and communalisation of education, and protection to the democratic rights of students.

The SFI has decided to organise an intense campaign to press these demands. It will extensively campaign through meetings, pamphlets and leaflets, and launch struggles from college to the national levels.

The SFI also extended solidarity to the May 21 general strike called by trade unions, and urged all the students to come out in protest on the day against the central government’s policies that are leading to rampant commercialisation of education. (INN)