Stop Opening New Degree Colleges, Assembly Panel Tells Odisha Govt

Bhubaneswar: The Assembly Committee on Higher Education has recommended the Odisha government for not opening new degree colleges in the state.

After reviewing the allocation made in 2020-21 budget, the committee headed by BJD MLA Bhupinder Singh suggested for complete closure of the system that allows to open new colleges.

It, however, said that degree colleges can be opened in the blocks where there is none.

The other recommendations of the committee are:-
—Seats in degree colleges should be increased in the regions where the students have no option to pursue higher studies after completing Plus II.

—  Considering that there are more than 1000 government and aided degree colleges in the state, the panel advocated creation of 15 additional Regional Director posts for 13 undivided districts of the state. The present count is five.

—Priority should be given to appointment of principal in all degree colleges.

—Due to the inordinate delay in the recruitment of regular teachers, the panel recommended a hike in the salary of the guest lecturers.

—For promotion to the reader post in non-government colleges, minimum teaching experience for lecturers should be 23 years instead of 27 years.

—The committee also recommended for infrastructure development of private colleges using MLA Local Area Development (LAD) funds.

The other members of the committee are Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, Nityananda Sahu, Debesh Acharya, Simarani Nayak, Sushant Kumar Behera, Bishnubrata Routray, Sunanda Das, Prakash Chandra Majhi, Shankar Oram, Aditya Madhi and Mukesh Kumar Pal.