SHILLONG, July 31: Throughout the past decade, since the Centre established nine central universities in North Eastern region, it was indeed intended to be the hub of higher education. Since then, teachers of all these universities felt the need for a closer co-ordination of academic and institutional responsibilities and sharing of knowledge between themselves.
To fulfill such a dream, elected bodies of the Teachers’ Associations, who are statutory bodies of all the Central universities of the region have met several times to launch a coordinating platform to pursue the Central Government in improving the state of higher education in Northeast India.
Consultative meetings between Central Universities Teachers’ Associations held in North Eastern Hill University on 25-26th March, 2013 resolved to form a ‘platform of University Teachers’ Associations of North-East India’.
In continuation, a joint meeting mandated and attended by the elected Teachers’ Associations of Five Central Universities of North-East India, with messages of support and solidarity from all others gave birth to the Confederation of Central Universities Teachers’ Associations on the day of 27th July, 2013 at Tezpur University, Assam.
The Confederation is named North-East India Confederation of Central University Teachers’ Associations (NEICCUTA). The Confederation, after a thorough deliberation among elected members of various Central Universities’ Teachers’ Associations arrived at the following founding declaration that Central Universities of Northeast India need to evolve democratic and transparent ways of functioning in order to deliver ‘academic, societal and intellectual excellence’.
The Confederation decided that its first office shall be located at NEHU, Shillong and it will rotate to other universities with a term of two years. Accordingly, Prof Xavier P Mao, President of NEHU Teachers’ Association is elected as the Chairman of the Confederation and Dr Prasenjit Biswas is elected as Secretary General of the Confederation.
Other office bearers include Prof Bijoy K Danta of Tezpur University and Prof G S Solanki from Mizoram University its Vice-Chairman and Executive Committee includes Dr Tapas Medhi (Tezpur), Dr E Kangaraj (Mizoram) and other elected representatives from Sikkim University, Rajiv Gandhi University, Nagaland University, Assam University, and Tripura University.(SP News)
