Corporates must pay a role in higher education, says PU V-C

Panjab University vice-chancellor Arun Kumar Grover, who was in the city for the convocation at PU Regional Centre here on Thursday, said corporate participation was must in the higher education, so that the students excel on entering the corporate sector.

He added that skilled courses were the need of the hour and it could only be provided if proper infrastructure and man power was provided in the city based government colleges.

Talking to the HT, Grover said, “We have to be innovative, or else the passing-out students will be mere graduates. If the corporate sector will participate, and the government and aided colleges will provide them infrastructure to run these skilled courses, then we can prepare the students for the future challenges by providing them proper training. The local administration and municipal corporation (MC) should also cooperate with us.”

The vice-chancellor added, “Before coming here, I had visited SCD Government College, which is in a bad condition. This college is one of the oldest ones in Punjab and there is a need to renovate it. As we are getting best students from the government institutes, we need to provide a good infrastructure.”

He said he had also observed that apart from the regular faculty, other teachers at SCD were being paid Rs 10,000 per month. “This is not justified. On inquiring from the college principal, I got to know that the teachers’ salaries were being paid from the parents’ teacher association (PTA) funds,” he said.

Grover said, “The students are being charged Rs 100 per month under the PTA fund. I have asked the college principal to send a proposal in the next syndicate, which is schedule for September 28, and we will pass that the funds should be enhanced. The whole idea behind this is to provide proper salary to the teachers. Every teacher must get Rs 21,600 salary per month.”

When contacted, college principal Dharam Singh Sandhu said, “We will send the proposal to enhance the PTA funds in the syndicate, as asked by the PU VC. We have about 50 guest faculty, who are getting Rs 10,000 per month. If the PTA funds will be enhanced then only will the teachers get a handsome salary.”