Bhubaneswar: The Vice Chancellors (VCs) of all the State Universities congregated today at the Governor’s Secretariat in Bhubaneswar for the annual Vice Chancellors Conference to discuss important issues pertaining to the 17 state-run universities in Odisha.
The conference was chaired by the Governor and Chancellor of Universities, Satya Pal Malik. This was the first meeting of the Chancellor with the VCs of 17 varsities after the former assumed office.
A list of ten topics including timely conduct of examinations, publication of results, distribution of certificates, filing up vacant posts, creation of new posts, setting up sports complexes in all the universities and maintenance of discipline and peace inside campuses were discussed threadbare at the conference. Issues relating to research activities and development of centres of excellence were also among the various agendas of the conference. The meet also focused on the modalities of a grievance redressal mechanism in the universities.
Ministers and Secretaries of four departments, including Higher Education Minister Ananta Das, Finance Minister Shashi Bhusan Behera, Tourism and Culture minister Ashok Chandra Panda and Sports, Electronics and IT Minister, Chandra Sarathi Behera were present during the meeting. The Directors of International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar and Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (VIMSAR) were also present at the conference.
"We are trying to develop the universities to bring them at par with national and international level institutions. We have adopted some reforms in higher education," said Ananta Das.
Now, there will be a uniform syllabus for all the universities in the State and examinations will also be conducted at the same time, he added.
The Finance department has sanctioned a total of 158 posts in various streams in Utkal University, Ravenshaw University, RD Women's University and Khallikote University and the process of recruitment has already started for those posts.
-----------Shashi Bhusan Behera, Finance Minister
"The ongoing vocational educational system in Odisha should be taken as a model where despite having fewer employees, we are conducting exams, publishing results within 45 days and also distributing the degrees much before other varsities in the State," said Chittaranjan Tripathy, VC of Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT).
He further stated that the model has been proposed before all the VCs of the universities in the conference. Tripathy said that a system of digital signature can be adopted which will help in distribution of certificates to the students in time.
Earlier, Governor Malik had called upon a few VCs and held discussions on matters related to the universities. Although the VCs conference is supposed to be conducted once a year, it was not convened for four years between 2012 and 2016.