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Dimapur, July 8 (EMN): The MeTTA-Nehu and NEHUTA expressed deep concern at the delay in appointment of a suitable candidate for the post of Vice Chancellor (VC) of North Eastern Hill University (Nehu).
An update on Thursday stated, "We understand from media reports that the search-cum-selection committee for appointment of VC has completed its job long back and the file is stuck at some administrative level without the new incumbent being announced at the right earnest".
"In the absence of a VC, the progress of the university is practically stalled, as NEHU suffers from serious administrative, academic and financial lapses over the last five years that brought down the status and the rank of the university. Given such an unwarranted slide of NEHU, the earliest central university for the North-Eastern region, the cause of higher education and specialised and professional training of talents from the region and the state of Meghalaya is stunted, as the institutional frame has wilted during the tenure of prof. S K Srivastava", it said.
"It was highly expected of the ministry of Education of the govt. of India to complete the statutory procedure. Now that the new Education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan has taken charge, it is incumbent upon his good office to appoint a new VC for NEHU. The panel is with the ministry and it is of utmost necessity that the ministry appoints the right candidate to lead the university from its present state of freefall", it read.
"NEHU needs a VC, who is familiar with specific ethno-cultural and linguistic background of the state of Meghalaya and the Northeastern region. It needs a qualified VC from the local community, who is grounded in the specific reality of the university and its cultural context so that students coming from myriad ethnic, tribal and non-ethnic background of Northeastern region and other parts of the country can be given due care and attention for the bright future, which requires a direct connect. In all likelihood, any academician coming from outside the region and removed from local cultural context shall not be able to establish the much needed connect with students and the larger academic fraternity", it stated.
"Particularly we remind the union government of its commitment towards NEHU's objective of social, cultural, scientific and economic development of the tribal people of the Northeast and Meghalaya that calls for appointment of an acceptable, qualified and reasonably academically endowed person as VC, who can also strike the much needed gender balance in a predominantly matrilineal social context that provides the catchment for students and researchers in NEHU", it added.