GUWAHATI, March 12 � The All Assam Students� Union (AASU) has called upon the political parties to announce their plans for human resource development (HRD) before the ensuing elections to the Assam Legislative Assembly.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said that over the years, all the parties overlooked the issue of human resource development. He said that the political parties failed to come up with any plan to solve the problems faced by the student community.
Bhattacharya said that the political parties should give an assurance to the people of Assam that if voted to power, they would constitute the management committees of all educational institutions only with educationists and prominent persons and no political leader would be included in such committees. The parties should also clarify their stand on formation of an education commission and implementation of the report of such commission. The politicians should also take a pledge that teachers in the government-run educational institutions would be appointed only on merit and there would be no political interference in the process of appointment, the AASU adviser demanded.
The students� body demanded that new job-oriented courses should be introduced in the universities and colleges of the State so that students of the State are not forced to go outside for studies spending huge sums of money. Moreover adequate funds should be provided to the universities of the state to improve infrastructure.
AASU president Sankar Prasad Roy lamented that the political parties are silent on a serious problem faced by the students of class V after the class was attached to the primary schools. He said that the parties should make their stand clear on the issue. He further pointed out that the government took a hasty decision of attaching Class V to the primary schools without making arrangements for appointing teachers and constructing classrooms.
Roy said that the students of Assam are being detached from their roots as only NCERT textbooks are translated in the State now and no effort has been made to teach the history of Assam to the students. But on this issue also, all the political parties are silent, he added.
AASU general secretary Tapan Kumar Gogoi called upon the political parties to raise demand for setting up of institutes like the Indian Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Information Technology, a global university, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, etc., in the State.
