Shillong, Oct 12: Students’ unions have asked Meghalaya Governor CH Vijayashankar for help in securing a dynamic Vice-Chancellor for North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), the one-premier varsity that has fallen on hard times in recent years.
Ranked 15th in 2016, in ten years NEHU has fallen to somewhere in the 151-200 band.
The university comes under the central government, whose Ministry of Education appoints the VC. The term of the controversial Prof PS Shukla came to an end in late July and only an interim VC has been appointed since.
In a joint petition, the NEHU Students’ Union and university unit of the Khasi Students Union asked the Governor to request the Centre to appoint a new VC who knows the university inside-out.
In the representation, the two students’ unions said that NEHU has an enviable legacy but has lacked stable, accountable leadership.
Although Shukla has an academic background, he was generally understood to have been a figure who would reflect the interest of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government. Faculty and even BJP MLA for Pynthorumkhrah, Alexander Laloo Hek, had pushed for a local appointee but to no avail as the central government went with Shukla, who replaced the almost equally disliked Prof SK Srivastava in 2021.
Recalling the November 2024 hunger strike by students over administrative functioning, appointments and basic amenities, the unions said recurring issues of governance, infrastructure and manpower under successive VCs have hurt the institution. The pressure on Shukla became extreme enough for him to leave Shillong at the end of 2024 and try to run NEHU by remote control from elsewhere.
NEHUSU and the KSU also warned that new reforms under the National Education Policy 2020, such as the four-year undergraduate programme, one year postgraduate and Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) are being introduced when the university lacks enough classrooms, teachers and resources.
What NEHU needs now, they said, is a VC of “distinguished academic standing, proven administrative experience, integrity, vision and a genuine commitment to strengthening the institution” and someone with familiarity with NEHU and the North East context.
