Kerala minister wants self-financing colleges shut

Thiruvananthapuram: Outspoken Communist Party of India Marxist leader and state public works minister, G. Sudhakaran has called for shutting down of self-financing colleges in the state, stating that they do not promote all-round education.

Sudhakaran said self-financing colleges that were being set up by corporate groups and religious establishments were running those institutions as virtual business centres without contributing positively to the society.

Sudhakaran said such institutions were backed by black money and suggested that they be shut down, alleging that they were ruining the educational sector in the state.

The minister’s comments come in the backdrop of a series of agitations in several self-financing colleges in Kerala with students launching protests on various grounds of dissatisfaction.

The recent student agitations were sparked off at the Nehru College of Engineering at Pambady near Thrissur where a student, Jishnu Pranoy committed suicide. Student organisations alleged that the management had harassed him, leading him to take the extreme step.

In the state capital, students of the Kerala Law Academy undertook a nearly one-month-long strike demanding the removal of its principal, Lakshmi Nair, alleging that she was harassing students and racially abused some students.

The students finally tasted success when she was removed from the post and the government is now moving to reclaim some of the land that was leased to the institution nearly half a century ago, citing illegal utilisation of the leased land.

Minister Sudhakaran alleged that self-financing colleges fostered violence, injustice and inequality and that the students coming out of their portals were shorn of political and social awareness. He, however, said those self-financing colleges that adhered to all government regulations be allowed to continue.