Educationists Stress on Maintaining Autonomy of Universities

Educationists have emphasized the need for maintaining the autonomy the universities. At a national education workshop on ‘University Grants Commission and Nepal’s Higher Education’ organised by Pragyik Vidyarthi Parishad (PVP) Nepal, they expressed such view. The Educationists suggested the university to keep the universities autonomous to expand students’ access to higher education, to make education affordable and improve education quality of university.

Legal reforms, investment in research and institutional autonomy of the universities are needed to resolve problems of higher education. On the occasion, former vice-chancellor of the Purbanchal University, Prof Dr Biju Kumar Thapaliya stressed the need to stop political intervention on higher education.

He pointed out weak institutional autonomy, insufficient investment in research and lack of policy continuity as the challenges. Thapaliya proposed that the universities should be linked with transparency, quality and accountability for results by maintaining its autonomy.

Similarly, Dean of Tribhuvan University Education Faculty, Prof Dr Bedraj Acharya, underlined that a goal has to be set to enroll at least 30 per cent higher education pursuing age group in higher education within next 10 years.

He pointed out the need of making education affordable along with expansion of higher education access. “Reducing the salary of teacher and staffs as well as expenses for educational activities in the name of reducing the expenses of education is not the solution,” he argued.

Likewise, educationist and former member of the National Planning Commission, Prof Dr Pushkar Man Bajracharya, shared that a separate national council should be formed for making human resources plan.

He stressed the need of long-term management of scholarship to students from poor financial background, laying emphasis that the University Grants Commission should make its role effective–determining the quality standards, monitoring, facilitating in educational reforms and providing grants for research.

Former vice-chancellor of Mid-West University, Prof Dr Upendra Koirala, educationist and former member of University Grants Commission, Prof Dr Govinda Nepal, member-secretary of University Grants Commission, Prof Dr Roji Shrestha, former secretary of University Grants Commission of India Prof Dr Manish Joshi and professor at Morgan State University, Maryland of America and educationist Prof Dr Krishna Bista, among others were present in the discussion of the programme chaired by former vice-chancellor of Tribhuvan University, Prof Dr Tirtha Khaniya. (RSS)