Vice-chancellors not making any effort to engage in dialogue: West Bengal Guv

KOLKATA: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday said members of the West Bengal Vice-Chancellors' Council (WBVCC) were not making any effort to engage in dialogue with him, which was detrimental to the academic interests of students amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a tweet, Dhankhar said such a stance is unbecoming of vice-chancellors, "who need to be role models for society and youth". The governor, who is the chancellor of state universities, also attached with his tweet a letter to council president and Jadavpur University VC Suranjan Das.

"A striking and disturbing feature of the activities of WBVCC is that no effort whatsoever has been made to engage me, a fact that denudes your action from being bona fide," he said in the letter.

On July 16, an anguished Dhankhar had told a press meet that the education system in West Bengal is "politically caged", a day after the vice-chancellors of 23 universities failed to turn up at a virtual meet called by him to discuss the academic situation amid the pandemic.

"I find there is tightening of this political cage in the education scenario in West Bengal. I wanted to fathom the problems the universities and colleges are facing by calling a virtual meeting of VCs, which they opposed tooth and nail for the reasons known to all," he had said.

The council in a statement said VCs could not attend the meeting called by Dhankhar without the higher education department being intimated, as per a new state government rule.

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