NEHU students union opposes VC’s decision to implement NEP for undergrad courses

The North Eastern Hills University (NEHU) Students Union on Saturday opposed the University Vice Chancellor Prof PS Shukla’s decision to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 for the undergraduate courses commencing this session.

Addressing a press conference, the representatives of the student body, Finance Secretary Mandor Diengdoh Swer, and Easterson Sohtun, Vice President of NEHU, said that the decision of the NEHU Vice Chancellor (VC) to implement NEP 2020 was made without taking the stakeholders into consideration. They also said that the state is not yet ready for NEP 2020.

They maintained that in rural areas, there is still a lack of multi-disciplinary courses and teachers.
They also added that the teacher-student ratio is not equivalent in the state.

“There is a multi-disciplinary course in the new education policy. In Meghalaya, in rural areas, there are more community colleges that don’t have a science or commerce stream, they only have an arts stream. So if students from arts who are interested in learning a commerce subject can learn, but how will the college in the rural area and in the city also who have only the arts stream manage?” Easterson Sohtun said.

Earlier, the Meghalaya College Teachers Association (MCTA) too had opposed the decision of the VC of NEHU to implement NEP 2020 from August 1, 2023.

It may be noted that on July 19, VC Prof. P.S. Shukla had announced that the NEP 2020 will be implemented for undergraduate (UG) students from August 1, 2023.

Earlier, Meghalaya Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma also said that Meghalaya is not ready to welcome National Education Policy as the contents of NEP 2020 is beyond the state’s capacity to implement it immediately.

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