Varsity meet held ignoring government directive

KANNUR: A meeting of the Kannur University Syndicate was held on Wednesday as scheduled, ignoring a directive issued by the Principal Secretary of Higher Education to postpone it. The Higher Education Secretary and the IT Secretary, individual members of the Syndicate representing the government, had earlier asked the university authorities to put off the date fixed for the meeting. The meeting was asked to be postponed in the wake of the government’s move to  reorganise the Syndicate of four universities, including that of the Kannur University.There were also reports that the Syndicate of Kannur University was likely to take decision on some controversial issues on Wednesday, but the meeting kept away from discussing such matters. Pro Vice-Chancellor of the university, when contacted, said that there was no such precedent of government issuing a directive to postpone a Syndicate meeting. Two individual members, the Higher Education Secretary and the IT  Secretary, had sent letters seeking to postpone the meeting citing some inconvenience.But since the agenda for the Syndicate meet was fixed more than two weeks ago, the meet couldn’t be postponed, said the Pro Vice-Chancellor, stating that the university had sent letters to them stating this. The directive from the Principal Secretary of Higher Education came later. The Syndicate which didn’t take any decision on issues requiring government sanction, decided to fix the       retirement age of principals of self-financing colleges as 65.  A proposal to make permanent appointments in the Academic Staff College wasn’t taken up for consideration.