Students protest govt decision to make colleges autonomous

Tribune News Service

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Jalandhar, August 6

A protest was held by members of the Punjab Students Union in Hoshiarpur against the decision of the Punjab Government to make eight government colleges autonomous .

They held rallies in various departments of Government College Hoshiarpur and conducted a signature campaign, submitting a demand charter through the principal of the college to the government.

They said if their demand was not met, then they would protest against the state government on the issue during Chabbewal byelection.

State finance secretary of the PSU Baljit Dharmakot, student leaders of the college Anuradha and Jaspreet Kaur said the Bhagwant Mann government was withdrawing its hands from imparting education by making the colleges autonomous under the New Education Policy of the Centre.

The government had not given any draft or notification to the colleges regarding their autonomy. However, they said the DPI office is ordering verbally to the college principals to register the name of the college for autonomy on the UGC site.

They said the government following in the footsteps of the Central Governemnt was moving towards privatising government colleges. Granting autonomy to colleges means increase in the fee which will put an additional financial burden on students.

The leaders of union warned the government that if this decision was not withdrawn, the union would launch a strong agitation against it.

Tajinderpal, Sharanpreet Badhan, Baljit Singh, Raj Kumar, Shalini, Phoolan Rani, Mamta Sharma, Aarti Arshdeep Kaur, Arpita, Payal, Jasdeep Kaur, Amandeep Kaur and Sandeep Singh were present.