Tamil Nadu: Stalin Advocates for State Control Over Universities
M K Stalin pushes for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to be Chancellor of State universities, defending State control
Chennai: Questioning the logic behind Governors functioning as Chancellors of the universities that were primarily set up and nurtured by the State government, Chief Minister M K Stalin said universities should be under the full control of the State governments and that he would continue his fight till the end to realize that, both legally and otherwise, and redeem the educational rights of the State.
Speaking at an event in the Alagappa University in Karaikudi, where he inaugurated a Rs 12 crore worth library set up by former Union Minister P Chidambaram from his own pocket and also unveiled a statue of Thiruvalluvar, Stalin said only the democratically elected Chief Minister should be the chancellor of the universities because it was the government that drew up schemes for the development of education in the State.
When the salaries of every employee in the universities, started from the professors, and the infrastructure facilities were taken care of by the State government, how was it fair for someone appointed by the Union Government to occupy the post of chancellor, he asked the gathering.
It was all the more important that the Chief Minister should be the chancellor of universities in a State like Tamil Nadu that had achieved the highest 49 per cent enrolment rate in higher education, which was two per cent higher than the national average, and housed 31 of the top 100 institutions of excellence in the country, he said.
The State that invested so much on higher education to take it to such a glorious height should have only the democratically elected Chief Minister to head its own universities, he said.
Stalin also cautioned the people against a prevalent move to appropriate leading Tamil personalities like saint poets Thiruvalluvar and Ramalinga Vallalar, both of whom spoke about the importance of equality in Tamil society, by a group of people and said that such appropriation should be prevented.
To the newly openly library, Thirumathi Lakshmi Valar Tamil library, which has been named after Chidambaram’s mother, the Chief Minister promised to send 1000 books soon after he returned to Chennai and said that he had already donated 2,75,000 books to various libraries, he said his government in the past three and a half years had opened 32 new arts and science colleges.
Appreciating the gesture of Chidambaram, the Chief Minister called upon the people to start libraries of in their places and said that even if they were not of the scale in which Thirumathi Lakshmi Valar Tamil library had been set up, they would help the local community to grow intellectually.
