Drop move to convert govt, pvt colleges into varsities: CPM

Chennai, Jun 11 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) today urged the state government to drop its move to convert some of the Government, aided and private colleges into Universities.

State unit secretary N Varadarajan, in a statement here, said the move would go against the interests of the students and faculty and affect the style of functioning of the colleges.

The government aided and private colleges would also hike the fees if they were converted to universities, Mr Varadarajan said.

Instead, the government could start fresh universities with necessary infrastructural facilities, he suggested.

After the National Knowledge Commission said that 1,500 more universities have to be established throughout the country to decentralise higher education, the DMK Government came out with a Bill to give university status to some of the existing colleges.

However, following the opposition, the Bill had been referred to the select committee, he said.

Mr Varadarajan said the CPI(M) had no second opinion that more universities needed to be established and students should be given access to higher education. But the government should take a constructive approach to achieve the task.

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