Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010
In protest against the move to convert govt. colleges into unitary universities

Tirupur: The lecturers, affiliated to Tamil Nadu Government College Teachers Association (TNGCTA), staged a demonstration in front of Chikkanna Government Arts College here on Tuesday in protest against the move to convert government colleges into unitary universities.

TNGCTA secretary (Tirupur-unit) M. K. Vinayagamoorthy said that conversion of government arts colleges into unitary universities would affect both the lecturers as well students considerably. “Once the institutions are turned into unitary universities, undergraduate courses will be phased out forcing the economically and socially backward students either to pursue graduation in private colleges paying hefty fees or drop out from the main stream education line altogether,” he pointed out.

Moreover, the transformation into unitary universities will also result in students paying exorbitant course fees for postgraduate courses and doctoral programmes.

Annual fees
“The students in general category who are paying annual fees of just Rs. 2,140 for MCA programme and Rs. 1,360 for postgraduate studies in science subjects will be forced to remit fees of Rs. 18,750 and Rs. 9,060 for the two courses respectively, once the college becomes a unitary university,” Mr. Vinayagamoorthy said.

The agitators expressed the fear that the service conditions of lecturers would be seriously affected when the colleges were turned into unitary universities since it became more or less a ‘private deemed university’.

Besides, transparency prevailed in the recruitment of lecturers would be in a jeopardy.

Expressing solidarity to their lecturers, a few students also joined the demonstration.