AUT wants unified admission panel for self-financing and aided streams in colleges in T.N.

The Hindu

27-05-2025

The Association of University Teachers has appealed to the Tamil Nadu government to ensure a single admission committee for self-financing and aided streams in aided colleges across the State.
The members want the government to make sure that aided stream students in colleges are levied only the government-prescribed fees during admission. The association appealed to the government to constitute an admission committee for the year 2025-26 by co-opting Scheduled Caste (SC) members in it.
The council has resolved to implement the Prohibition of Capitation Fee (Educational Institutions) Act 1992 to prevent managements of aided colleges from fleecing students from lower socioeconomic background.
The members wanted the government to appoint a bureaucrat as the registrar of Periyar University, Salem, to streamline the administrative irregularities found in the varsity in the last four years.
The council has also proposed to appeal to the government to constitute an inquiry into the nomination of the head of Tamil department as the in-charge Vice-Chancellor by the then V-C R. Jaganathan, and the omissions and commissions by the in-charge V-C.
An impartial inquiry into excess fee collection in the name of condonation fee for Tiruvalluvar University during 2024-25 must be constituted, the members said. They have also sought the implementation of the University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations, 2023, by universities that call for nomination of only senior-most faculties to the academic council/governing board of autonomous colleges.
K. Raja, general secretary of the AUT, said the Higher Education department should initiate immediate steps to release the long-pending salary since April 2024 due to teachers and staffers of erstwhile constituent colleges of Bharathidasan University and withdraw the case filed at the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. The council also resolved to urge Bharathidasan University to absorb the 34 regular teachers against existing vacancy in university departments in consonance with the resolution passed by the syndicate in November 2019.
The AUT resolved that the Higher Education department should intervene and impress upon the interim administrator to conduct the elections to the Pachiayappa's Trust Board to enable the constitutions of the college committees at the earliest.
On Sunday (May 25, 2025), the AUT elected new office-bearers. R. Saravanan, K. Raja, and K. Syed Ahamed Kabeer were sworn in as president, general secretary, and treasurer, respectively, for the period 2025-2027.