Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh cabinet Tuesday gave its approval to the proposal to call all university vice-chancellors (V-C) ‘kulgurus’ instead of ‘kulpatis’, as they are currently known.
The cabinet’s approval, ahead of the state assembly session scheduled to start Wednesday, comes nearly three years after then higher education minister Mohan Yadav had mooted the proposal in September 2021 and stated that it would be implemented if approved by the cabinet. Yadav is now chief minister of the state.
Yadav, while making the proposal to change the nomenclature for V-C that year, had reportedly said that “if we say ‘kulguru’, it sounds more familiar than ‘kulpati’”.
Elaborating on the idea, he had explained that the suggestion to change the way V-Cs were referred to was put before him at a meeting at Vikram University in Ujjain, and said that it would soon be put before the cabinet, then headed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
A senior state government official told ThePrint that a standing committee was formed to study the issue and the way the amendment in name had been carried out in other states such as Maharashtra.
The committee reflected on the procedure of change, as any change in nomenclature would have required an amendment to the Madhya Pradesh Vishwavidyalaya Adhiniyam, 1973, the parent Act that governs universities in the state.
But of the 21 government-run universities and 51 private universities in Madhya Pradesh, according to state officials, only eight come directly under the Adhiniyam 1973 while the remaining were established and are governed through independent legislation. Thus, an amendment would have been required in each legislation to effect the change.
Over a year after Yadav’s proposal, it was at the 100th coordination meeting of all university vice-chancellors in December 2022 that the name change proposal came up for discussion and was approved by the gathering, according to Governor Mangubhai Patel who had presided over the meeting.
Speaking to ThePrint, a second state government official pointed out that after the matter was approved at the 100th coordination meeting, it had to be sent for review of various departments such as law and finance for internal vetting, before it could be finally placed before the cabinet for approval.
In January this year, during the 101th coordination meeting, the issue was reviewed again and it was decided that it was under process.
The cabinet has now cleared the proposal, and a Bill to amend the parent Act of 1973 would be put up in the assembly. Once approved, it will be enforced following an official order by the General Administration Department.
According to state officials, instead of amending each independent legislation, a single amendment would be made to the parent Act with a clause that a similar change would be enforced across all universities, including the private ones.
Reacting to the decision of the cabinet, MP Congress chief Jitu Patwari, who held the portfolio of higher education under the Kamal Nath-led Congress government, said: “Mohan Yadavji was also the minister of higher education and he should reflect on why the quality of education is so poor in MP. Why are none of the universities from the state anywhere close to the top 100 universities in India?”
“If changing the nomenclature can improve the quality of education, then the government should certainly do so. But it looks like the government is just interested in putting a tilak and getting away with it,” he told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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