KSO calls MU admission notice "insensitive"
Source: Chronicle News Service
Kangpokpi, August 04 2023:
Strongly condemning Manipur University (MU) authority 's fresh admission notice, Kuki Students' Organization (KSO) termed the fresh admission notification as "insensitive nature'' towards the Kuki fraternity of the university.
KSO pointed out that MU authority issued a notification pertaining to fresh admission in various Masters' level programmes and integrated courses amidst the on-going ethnic conflict.
It stated that the prospects of the Kuki students for higher education are severely affected and jeopardised since May 3 .
The following days, all tribal students took shelter at the Assam Rifles camp inside the campus and thereafter evacuated to the relief camps.
In the process of arson, the targeted attacks on personal belongings were directed towards certificates, books, thesis, laptops, etc., it continued, while adding that MU became a central university under an act of parliament in 2005 but it has lost its central character and has vitiated itself to even less than a state University.
Some important hallmarks of higher education are accessibility and equity, which are enshrined in the Indian Constitution and upheld by the Ministry of Education and University Grant Commission, but now, Manipur University has become inaccessible for students, staff and faculties belonging to the Kuki community and the authority and the state failed miserably to protect them, it maintained, while adding that instead of going gung-ho with the admission process, the Manipur University authorities should first address the issue of 400 students including 80 research scholars who are displaced right now.
The KSO demanded that all the cases of the Kuki students and research scholars be resolved on a case-to-case basis without compromising their future educational prospects and personal safety while steps be taken to facilitate their protection of careers like online examination, pre-submission seminar online, handling of certificates, etc.
Moreover, fresh admission should be enabled in the hill areas and arrangements made for the continuation of higher education for the Kuki community in the hill areas, it added.
While cautioning the Manipur University authority not to continue the fresh admission process immediately without resolving the above issues, the students' body appealed to all the Kuki students to abstain from applying to the university without making alternative arrangements for the riots affected tribal students.