Kolkata: Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, in presence of state Education minister Partha Chatterjee, held a meeting with seven universities of the state at Raj Bhavan on Thursday afternoon.
The Governor, who also happens to be the Chancellor of all the state universities, advised dealing with the students in a compassionate manner and stressed on filling up the vacant posts of teachers for maintaining the academic standards.
V-Cs of Calcutta, Jadavpur, Rabindra Bharati, Presidency, Kalyani, Burdwan and West Bengal State Universities attended the meeting.
According to a source in the Governor House, some Vice-Chancellors pointed out their difficulties in appointing Assistant Professors (AF) in their institutions.
"In a number of instances, when we have gone for appointment of AFs, we have found a section of teachers alleging favouritism on the part of the university authorities. This is a serious problem in appointment of teachers," a Vice-Chancellor had pointed out.
V-Cs of Calcutta University and Burdwan University made a powerpoint presentation before the Governor, to highlight some new measures that they have taken for academic excellence.
The Governor and the Education minister had differences in opinion when the matter of student admission came up in the discussion. It has been learnt from reliable sources that the Governor expressed his discontent over the violence in some colleges over student admission and blamed the role of student unions and student elections for the same.
"There was a time when the Uttar Pradesh government had set a precedence by doing away with student voting. But you will not do similar things here," the Governor had told Chatterjee during the interaction.
Chatterjee retorted strongly by saying that the state has gone for student councils and unions have already become non-existent.
The minister expressed his discontent over the role of Presidency University Vice-Chancellor Anuradha Lohia, in dealing with the issue of handing over Hindu Hostel to its students. The Governor also raised questions, expressing his opinion that the issue of student agitation that has been continuing over a month, could have been solved through talks with the students.