The Gangadhar Meher (Autonomous) College, a premier educational institution of western Odisha organised a meeting for development of the institution.
The meeting was attended by academicians, intellectuals, former principals, students and former students, where participants demanded unanimously to convert the college to a unitary university.
A focus group was formed with people from all walks of life and also those who are interested in the development of the college. The group would make consolidated efforts for the development of the institution, said Gangadhar Meher college principal Prof Gangadhar Mishra. The members of the focus group proposed to upgrade the present autonomous college into a unitary university, Mishra added. The participants further discussed about other issues of the institution such as staff crunch, infrastructure development, camps beautification and maintenance of the buildings.
The contractual teacher system is a reason behind the deterioration of the educational standard of the institution, which needs to be abolished with immediate effect, said Dilip Panda, a former lecturer of the college.
The students also raised the problem of staff shortage and encroachment of the campus by outsiders. We are facing a lot of problems because of the shortage of teaching staff. We feel it proper to convert the college to unitary university. But at the same time, all other problems should also be solved. Particularly, vacancies in the teaching staff should be filled in on emergency basis, some students said.
