The North Eastern Hill University Students’ Union (NEHUSU) has said that the decision to implement the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 is done in ‘haste’ on the individual capacity of NEHU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla.
NEHUSU Finance Secretary, Mandor Diengdoh Swer claims that the academic council has not given its approval and that the VC went on to hold a meeting with principals of various colleges in the State.
He said that the hasty implementation of the NEP will affect the students with the lack of infrastructure and the pupil teacher ratio in the state.
“If we talk about a subject like cyber security there are many schools in the rural areas including in the urban areas that are not equipped with such teachers to teach the subject and both the teachers and students will suffer,” he said.
Stating that NEHUSU is not against the NEP but the hasty decision, he said a thorough examination is required at least for a year before it is being implemented.
He stated that even the teachers in the academic council meetings have expressed concern but the VC who did not secure the majority support turned to the principals of colleges. “If the VC has ignored the official body like the academic council, then we as the students see him as a dictator,” he added.
E Sohtun said that the multidisciplinary education course in the NEP, that looks at how different disciplines can interact and overlap with each other to create a comprehensive understanding of a subject, will also be hard to be implement in Meghalaya where some colleges especially in the rural areas only have one stream.
He said that another difficulty is the shortage of the Coding and Computational Skills (CCS) teachers at the school level.
“We want the authority concerned or the ministry that there should be more debate on the NEP before it is implemented and we cannot accept it blindly without discussing in depth,” he added.
