Unaided colleges stay defiant on centralised admission portal issue in Amritsar

Amritsar, February 28

Already at loggerheads with the state government over various issues confronting higher education, managements of the Non-Govt Aided Colleges Management Federation (NGACMF) has announced that they would continue to defy the state government’s orders on retirement age row and centralized admission portal.

Federation president Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina, who is also president of the Khalsa College Governing Council, released a statement along with several management heads of unaided colleges in this regard. In a recent meeting of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), Chinna informed that members of the JAC decided that no college would participate in the ‘discriminatory’ Centralized Admission Portal, as announced by the higher education department. The admission for the new academic session of the colleges will commence from May-June onwards and will continue till August.

The federation members had sought meetings with the Chief Minister and the Education Minister, but their pleas to discuss the important matters elicited no response. The federation along with three State Universities’ Principals’ Associations, Punjab Chandigarh Colleges Teachers Union (PCCTU) and Un-aided Private Colleges Association had formed the joint action committee (JAC). Meanwhile, today a delegation of PCCTU led by Prof Gurdas Singh Sekhon, general secretary, PCCTU, Dr Lalit Kumar, district president, Gurdaspur, and Prof Parminderjit Kaur, president, BUC college, Batala, met Cabinet minister Harpal Singh Cheema and later met with Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains at the Secretariat, Chandigarh, and discussed the issue of restoration age of retirement and grant till the age of 60 years in the aided colleges of Punjab. Bains said the matter had been discussed in the Cabinet in the presence of the Chief Minister and the teachers would be notified within this week.