Our Special Correspondent
TURA
Voicing concern over the implementation of the Central University Eligibility Test (CUET) for admissions to colleges and joining the chorus seeking its removal, the Garo National Council political party, which is a partner of the NPP-led executive committee in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC), has warned that the new system will push the human resource development of the state many years behind.
Sitting MDC and Deputy Chief Executive Member in GHADC, Nikman Ch Marak, has petitioned Chief minister Conrad K Sangma calling for doing away with the proposed CUET on the grounds that the reservation policy for tribals by way of admissions to colleges would be adversely impacted.
“The recent notification on Reservation Policy for admission through CUET, 2022 issued by the North Eastern Hill University, (NEHU) is nothing but a deliberate discrimination against the Scheduled Tribe category as 7.50 per cent only has been reserved for the students of entire jurisdiction of NEHU,” pointed out the GNC leader.
According to Nikman Marak, this meagre quota is not only discriminatory but also against the existing reservation policy of the state government of Meghalaya which had been adopted and in force ever since the creation of the composite state of Meghalaya way back in the year 1972.
“If the NEHU’s Reservation Policy on admission through CUET is abruptly enforced or implemented in its present form, it will definitely reduce the number of young graduates and post graduates belonging to the ST category in near future thereby driving our state’s Human Resource Development backwards,” cautioned the GNC leader.
He termed the CUET in its present form as “highly discriminatory against poor students, particularly students belonging to the ST, SC, OBC, people with disabilities and EWs.”
“This policy needs to be revoked and the pre-CUET policy of admission based on the requisite percentage of marks secured by the individual student needs to be restored. The implementation of CUET will also add additional academic burden and bring about mushrooming of private and parallel Tuition Classes which will undoubtedly encourage the unhealthy competitions amongst the students and teachers of different institutions,” warns the GNC leader who was himself once a student leader of Tura Government College Students Union.
The deputy CEM has appealed to chief minister to take up the matter with the central government in earnest given that Meghalaya’s Human Resource Development (HRD) is still lagging far behind the rest of the country.