Rollback will severely affect students: Jemino

Staff Reporter

Shillong, Sep 17: United Democratic Party (UDP) general secretary and former Nongthymmai legislator Jemino Mawthoh has opined that rolling back the decision to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) will have serious ramifications for the students’ community of the state.

“Reverting or roll back of decision will have serious ramifications for the student community. Let us put the interest of the students first,” Mawthoh said in a statement issued today.

This came in the wake of the demand made by the North Eastern Hill University Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) and Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association (MCTA) to roll back decision to implement the NEP.

“With the State Education Commission in place, we can articulate the problems and concerns shared by all institutions and stakeholders and then move forward,” he said.

Stating that almost all colleges have gone ahead with the implementation of the NEP, Mawthoh said, “Principal’s council have agreed upon the implementation. No colleges have sought for deferment of implementation.”

“I share the concerns of other stakeholders and teachers organisation as they are genuine but we need to iron out the difficulties faced by institutions,” he said while adding “In a transition there will be problems, but we need to take up the challenges head on. We cannot afford to lag behind.”

Further, Mawthoh said that considering the dismal performance in the education sector, “we need to take this opportunity to capitalize from crisis into opportunity”.

He said the State has not been able to implement Choice Based Credit System at the undergraduate level since 2016 adding “And, therefore, we have less major papers as compared to other institutions in the country.”

“Students seeking admission in other states finds difficulty due to this and also difficulty in appearing for CUET and other competitive exams. Therefore, undergraduate needs reforms,” the former legislator said.

“If we have to build a house, we should not wait for the roads, electricity, water connection to come first. We build the house and simultaneously push for the road, water, electricity..this is always the case of Meghalaya,” he added.

ADCs fail to submit UCs on central schemes

The autonomous district councils (ADCs) have failed to submit pending utilization certificates (UCs) for the implementation of various development schemes sanctioned by the Centre during 2017 – 2022.

Out of the grants of Rs 385.71 crore received as central grants during 2017-22, the ADCs could submit UCs for only Rs 129.63 crore (34%) of the total fund allotted, said the State Finances Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 31, 2022.

Non-submission of the UCs means that the authorities have not explained as to how funds were spent over the years or they were not spent, it said.

The CAG has suggested that the ADCs may be advised to submit the pending UCs.

Meanwhile, the report said that the annual accounts of the ADCs were in arrears for two to six years.

The outstanding annual accounts of the KHADC were from 2020-21 to 2021-22, JHADC from 2019-20 to 2021-22 and GHADC from 2016-17 to 2021-22.

As per the Fund Rules of JHADC and GHADC, the annual accounts were to be submitted to the PAG (Audit) by June 30 of each year but no prescribed date was mentioned in the Fund Rules of the KHADC.

The CAG said that persistent delay in the finalization of accounts is fraught with the risk of fraud and leakage of public money going undetected. It recommended that the state government may advise the ADCs to finalise the arrear accounts and submit them to the Principal Accountant General (Audit).