THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government will soon come out with a set of guidelines to ensure the smooth functioning of professional colleges and hostels in the state. This was decided at a meeting that the government had with representatives of various student organisations here.
Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala and Education Minister P K Abdu Rabb represented the government in the meeting. The need to bring out guidelines to ensure discipline in professional colleges came in the wake of a recent incident in which a girl student was mowed down by a vehicle during Onam revelry by students at College of Engineering Trivandrum. Chennithala said the government’s attempt was to evolve a policy that will set the limits to which extra-curricular activities can be allowed on campuses while ensuring that democratic and organisational freedom of students are not entirely curbed.
The guidelines will be issued after the government convenes a separate meeting with representatives of teachers’ associations next week, the ministers said.
“The government does not believe that incidents like the one which occurred in CET is happening on all college campuses. However, there needs to be some guidelines on how functions are to be conducted on campuses,” Chennithala said.
The Home Minister said the issues within the campus can be effectively sorted out by teachers and students without the intervention of police. “It is not right to blame students alone for problems,” he said adding that in some cases, the teachers and managements were responsible for the issues.
Chennithala said that student organisations need to introspect on why campus politics does not have the same acceptability among students that it enjoyed in the past.
The Education Minister was of the view that there needs to be regulations in the functioning of college hostels in the wake of widespread complaints. He urged colleges to ensure that students who are not engaged in regular studies are not allowed to stay in hostels.
Abdu Rabb further said that it was time to introspect whether engineering college students should be allowed promotion to higher classes if they do not pass each semester within a specific time-frame. The student representatives expressed their views on the draft guidelines prepared by a committee comprising Additional Chief Secretaries of the Departments of Higher Education and Home, Vice-Chancellors, officials of the Department of Collegiate Education and principals.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Nalini Netto, State Police Chief T P Senkumar, Higher Education Secretary B Srinivas, Vice-Chancellors Babu Sebastian, P K Radhakrishnan, M K Abdul Khadar and other senior officials were also present at the meeting.