To revamp the college education system in the state on the priority, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal Wednesday directed the Principal Secretary Higher Education to work out detailed modalities to immediately initiate the recruitment process of college lecturers and non-teaching staff against the vacant posts besides upgradation of infrastructure in rural, semi urban and urban colleges as most of them were in the dilapidated condition with the passage of time.
Presiding over a high level meeting with the principals of the Govt. Colleges and the Vice Chancellors of the Universities in the state here at Chief Minister's residence this morning, Badal asked the higher education department to submit a comprehensive report on the status of infrastructure and the vacant posts of teaching and non teaching staff in the colleges to his Principal Secretary within a week so that requisite funds could be allocated from the finance department.
The Chief Minister also asked the Principal Secretary Higher Education to take up the matter with Punjab Public Service Commission to allow the state government to fill up the vacant posts of college lecturers through the departmental selection committee as per the prescribed UGC guidelines to curtail the procedural delay and to ensure that the newly appointed lecturers were in place before the start of next academic session i.e. July, 2011.
Badal was also asked the DPI Colleges to convene a departmental promotion committee to fill up the 29 posts of principals which had been lying vacant since long. To this she assured that the principals would be promoted within next two months after completing all the formalities so that they could join the respective colleges before the onset of the next academic session. Badal also directed the DPI colleges to initiate requisite formalities to start the government colleges at Sujanpur in Gurdaspur district and Gurnekhurd in Sangrur district from the next session which had been closed for the want of teaching & non-teaching staff and requisite infrastructure.
Reiterating the paramount importance of the higher education, Badal emphasized the need to equip all the 55 colleges with the state-of-the-art infrastructure and requisite teaching and non-teaching staff to impart the best education to the students especially from the rural areas to enable them to compete with their counterparts in the urban areas.
Badal also directed the Vice Chancellors of Punjabi University Patiala, Panjab University Chandigarh and Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar to immediately start the recruitment process in their upcoming seven, three and four constituent colleges under the UGC scheme in the educationally backward blocks of the state so that the classes could begin from academic session 2011-12. He was also informed in the meeting that almost 50% of the construction works had been completed in these institutions and the remaining would be accomplished positively by the mid of April, 2011.
The Chief Minister also decided to restore the pristine glory of the Govt. sports and arts college Jalandhar which had produced numerous celebrated sport persons in national as well international sports arena like Olympics, Common Wealth Games and Asian games etc. during its glorious past. He agreed to the proposal put by the principal of the college to raise the intake of girls to 50 and boys to 200 under sports category to groom them for national and international participation.
The meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. DS Guru, Financial Commissioner Revenue Mr. AR Talwar who is also holding the additional charge of Higher Education, Additional Secretary Higher Education Mr. GK Singh, Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. Gaggandip Singh Brar, Vice Chancellor Punjabi University Patiala and DPI Colleges Jasmit Kaur.
