education

Updated: Jul 06, 2017 12:29 IST

Lucknow: Restoration of student union elections in state universities will be discussed at the vice chancellor’s (VCs) conference to be held in Lucknow on Thursday. More than 20 heads of universities will be participating in the first, the first of its kind after the BJP government came to power in March this year

Governor Ram Naik, who is also the chancellor of the state’s universities, has convened the meeting to discuss continuing student polls after 11 years in Lucknow University (LU) and other varsities.

The sixth item listed on the agenda of the meeting under administrative reform category says student polls should be held simultaneously in all the universities in a specific time frame.

The universities will be under pressure to hold the elections by August.

The first priority will be to make identity cards of the students, prepare a new voter list and then go for elections.

LU’s student union poll was last held in 2005. In 2006, elections were announced but cancelled after student leaders from the union affiliated to the then ruling Samajwadi Party resorted to vandalism while campaigning.

The then vice-chancellor RP Singh had ordered sine die closure of the university for 10 days. As a result of that incident, student union elections have not been held till date.

The universities, however, will be told to hold the students union elections as per the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations that provide four categorisations for student polls. The universities have to pick one of these categorisations for the elections.

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court has asked LU to take a call on categorisation of the university depending upon the number of students, and find out whether they would opt for direct or indirect elections.The state government has made LU responsible for the categorisation, and the latter informed the court that it would do the categorisation soon.

The other important points that will deliberated upon are filling up vacant post of teachers, use of technology to bring about qualitative improvement, uniform academic calendars, establishment of smart classes and promoting research work.