Chennai: The Tamil Nadu higher education department will conduct region-wise stakeholder meetings with students, faculty members and college managements to hear their grievances and suggestions for improving colleges.Higher education minister P Viswanathan will chair the meeting, along with senior officials from the department, in Tirunelveli on Monday.Many students at govt arts and science colleges in the city have complained about a lack of clean toilets and drinking water, as well as a shortage of faculty members. Students admitted to engineering colleges through counselling have also complained about excessive fees, delays in receiving certificates and a lack of qualified faculty members.“We wanted to listen to students’ problems and hear their suggestions for improving the quality of higher education and colleges,” said M P Vijayakumar, vice-chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE).The council recently held a similar meeting in Tiruchirappalli, where students raised several issues, including scholarship-related problems, hostel curfews, a lack of mental health counsellors and inadequate training for campus placements.“Most of these grievances can be addressed. We are planning to conduct such meetings across the state to understand the ground situation,” Vijayakumar said.The council is also planning to provide capacity-building training to 270 principals of govt arts and science colleges, engineering colleges and polytechnic colleges.“Principals will receive two days of residential training on financial management, handling mental stress among students, transgender-related issues and the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act. The training will help them understand their roles and responsibilities, govt rules and ways to perform better,” Vijayakumar said.Officials from the Directorate of Collegiate Education and the Directorate of Technical Education will also receive the training in batches.Tamil Nadu govt has recently appointed more than 120 new principals to govt arts and science colleges.
