AAU Employees stage protest in support of various demands at Jorhat
A Correspondent
JORHAT: Along with other universities throughout the country, in Jorhat too, the Assam Agricultural University Employees’ Association AAU and members of the State Federation observed hour-long protest in front of the administrative block in the Jorhat campus to demand uniform pay scale, service condition and filling up of vacant posts.
They also demanded regularization of services of all casual and contractual employees, restoration of the old pension system, representation of non-teaching employees in the university bodes like housing, skill up-gradation, and also in-service training. They submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister of India through the Vice-Chancellor in-charge Dr. Ashok Bhattacharyya, said A Sharma, the general secretary of AAU Employees’ Association, on Wednesday.
The memorandum further stated that the Draft National Education Policy, 2019 had certain contradictory recommendations with regards to higher education development in this country. “We welcome the recommendation in so far as provision for spending 6 percent of the GDP for education, although no specific time limit has been set. The draft policy merely repeated the earlier commitment made in NEP-1968 and NEP-1986. As the draft policy itself mentioned that in spite of NEP 1968 and NEP-86, the public expenditure is only 2.7 percent of the GDP till 2017-18,” stated the memorandum.
“Privatization in education is the result of gradual withdrawing of the State from the field of education over the years and the draft NEP-2019 clearly said this if we look at the implementation of 1969 and 1986 policies. What we have seen is that private investment came only in professional courses such as management, technical and health services and the result is hopeless, bearing a few counted institutions as various reports suggest that the quality of graduate turnout by these private institutions is substandard to a larger extent,” the memorandum further stated.
The employees’ association appealed for further consultation in the matter of New Education Policy-2019 and not to rush through the passing of the Bill in the Parliament.