Violence,scams,faculty crunch mar city’s education scenario

Teacher-student row
Student leader Barinder Dhillon allegedly manhandled the chairperson of the Punjabi department. The chairperson initially gave a complaint,but never pursued it.

No hostels,PGs flourish
Like always,lack of hostel rooms remained a perpetual problem. This year also,hundreds of students had to do without hostels. Students held protests and even university authorities tried to find a solution,but nothing could be done. In the end,many students had to go for paying guest accommodations in the city.

None worthy of PU chairs
Research work in PU continued to suffer with chairs being vacant for decades now. This year also,all chairs at the university remained vacant. Also,PU failed to benefit from the grants they could have had if the chairs had been filled. Though interviews were held for the Rajiv Gandhi Chair,the four candidates were declared unfit for the chair.

Guest faculty saves the day
Shortage of faculty continued,as authorities failed to do much this year. In the absence of regular teachers,most departments have guest faculty. But except postponing and canceling interviews,authorities could not do much about the issue.

Centralised admission
Students wanting to join city colleges were a harassed lot,as usual. In the absence of a centralised admission system,they kept shuttling between different colleges for admissions. Besides spending money on buying forms of different colleges,students faced chaotic situations and stress.

Colleges too see violence
During student elections,a group of youths entered DAV College with swords and attacked students. In the melee,college property was destroyed,resulting in the presidential elections getting cancelled. In another incident,a group of students clashed in SD College during the youth festival. Later,the matter was resolved amicably.

THE SUNNY SIDE
V-C Sobti awarded

PU Vice Chancellor Prof R C Sobti was given the Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE) award by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Rs 32-cr grant for PU
In a big relief to PU,the Centre removed the cap on the Rs 32 crore grant it used to give annually. As a result,in the new financial year (2010),the Centre will release the 60 per cent share of the estimated budget of PU — 40 per cent comes from Punjab.

SCHOOL EDUCATION
School heads face corruption charges

The Education department repatriated Anil Sharma,principal of the Government Model Senior Secondary School,Sector 23,after charges of misuse of funds surfaced against him. In another case of misappropriation of funds,Alka Mehta,principal of GMSSS-45 was suspended with a few teachers in October.

Corporal punishment
Parents of a student of St John’s School went to the Administration with their complaint of corporal punishment,leading to the suspension of the teacher. Government schools were also in news,with incidents of a student assaulting teachers and students rising to the support of a teacher ‘wrongly’ suspended on charges of corporal punishment being reported.

Recruitment scam
The then Director Public Instructions (Schools) Samwartak Singh was named in the teacher recruitment scam in September. Singh’s office remained locked for almost two weeks after his name figured in the scam. As a face saving exercise,the Administration withdrew all powers pertaining to financial matters and other decisions from Singh,reducing him to a dummy head for almost two months till new DPI Sunil Bhatia replaced him. In December,Singh was given a clean chit by the police.

As a result,the project has been shelved.