Shillong, March 15: Leader of Opposition Mukul Sangma has expressed concern over politicising USTM affairs.
“Somehow or the other in the case of USTM, I find that it is a little bit politicized. This is the perception. I will have to verify whether it is truly politicized or not but if I watch from where I am now, I have this perception,” Sangma said with reference to the arrest of the USTM chancellor in Assam.
“Therefore, it will be important for the government, both the governments to engage their authorities concerned and look at that as at the end of the day every university established in this particular region and not only in Meghalaya, everywhere in the region, everywhere in the country do not become a subject to doubt and lose the kind of trust and confidence otherwise burden and responsibility will be passed on to the government to establish government universities all across,” he said.
According to Mukul, the idea of enabling the establishment of self-financed private universities is to ensure that there is participation of the corporate world and participation of people who have the investible reserve, who would like to take advantage of the available space in providing access to higher education. That is the intention as the government alone cannot actually provide the kind of institutions to accommodate the number of students as it is a good thing to have more and more children who aspire to pursue their higher education all across the country.
“It is not possible for the government alone to establish institutions and equip our aspiring youths to be able to compete for those spaces of opportunities. So therefore, the involvement of the private sector is crucial,” he said.
At the same time there must be a reason for people to believe that there is a strong regulatory mechanism which should not be subjected to any doubt. If somebody points a finger at someone, it generates that kind of doubt. Therefore a mechanism has to be put in place. Restoration of trust and confidence in the private universities is very important keeping in mind the huge gap that would be created as a result of lack of trust as parents will have hesitation to send their children to private universities and then naturally the burden of providing that kind of space in government institutions will be upon the government which will be very difficult, therefore there is a need for everybody to come together”.
