Students indulging in ragging will not go scot-free, from now on, as Goa Governor Dr S S Siddhu has given his accent to Goa Prohibition of Ragging Bill 2008 and the same has been notified as an Act. Dr Siddhu made an announcement to this effect at the Silver Jubilee celebration of Goa University held at the Kala Academy, on Tuesday. Dr Siddhu said with the enactment of the law, the managements of educational institutions have a primary responsibility to implement the Act, effectively. However, the onus rests on parents and guardians to advice their wards to behave sensibly with their juniors, he felt.
The governor said there was a steep increase in ragging in educational institutions, some of which had even resulted in loss of lives and in some other cases it caused tremendous psychological trauma to victims. The spread of this menace was indeed worrisome, he noted. He said the Act was more relevant at this time of the year when educational institutions were gearing up fornew academic year.The anti-ragging Act was pending approval since 2007. It authorises heads of the institutions to file fact-finding reports and makes them abettors in ragging if they fail to take cognizance of complaints pertaining to the act which leads students to commit suicides. Congratulating Goa University for its entry into Silver Jubilee year, Dr Siddhu urged teachers to be conscious to the needs of students and make themselves more accountable to their jobs. Also, the educators have to be innovative to meet the day-to-day challenges in the field of teaching, he opined.
On the occasion, Director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, P Balaram, exhorted the university to grow bigger and better institution. Balaram, a Padmashree awardee, said that there should be reward for good performance and negative markings for non-performance in educational institutions. But, no such system exits presently, he rued. He said many of the institutes have become rigid as most of the postings were of permanent nature. This doesn’t augur well for educational institutions because they cannot undergo change, he said. Chief Minister Digambar Kamat assured the university of Government assistance, after the vice chancellor highlighted the fund crunch it was facing.
-Herald, Goa Daily
