"If you participate in conference...": Governor RN Ravi alleges Tamil Nadu Police threatened VCs

Ooty (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 25 (ANI): Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi attacked the state government and alleged that the Tamil Nadu police threatened the vice-chancellors of universities not to participate in the two-day conference in Udhagamandalam on Friday.
"Unfortunately, in this conference, the state universities are not participating. They have informed me, both in writing and verbally, that the state government instructed them not to participate. As of now, one of our VCs is in the police station. Some vice chancellors had reached Ooty, and an unprecedented event occurred. It never happened before. There was a midnight knock on their doors, and the secret police, a special branch of the state, informed them that if they participated in the conference, they would not be able to return home and reunite with their families. I advised them to take care of their family," RN Ravi alleged, addressing the Inaugural Session of the Conference of Vice-Chancellors of State, Central and Private Universities of Tamil Nadu at Raj Bhavan in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu.
He further said that the two-day conference is meant to "improve the quality of education" as there "no politics" involved in this.
"From 2021, am doing this meeting. Half the students in a government school in high school can't beat a classroom test score. We need to improve the quality. Our state has one of the highest gross enrollment rates, over 50 per cent. Our state universities produce over 6500 PhDs every year, which is a very impressive figure indeed. The other side of the story is that in 6500 plus PHD, not even 1 per cent is NET GRF qualified, that is UGC. That determines the eligibility mandate, whether the scholar is intelligent enough to take up the research. We found that the situation is not very comfortable," he added.
RN Ravi further criticised the state education system and said that the government high school students can't read the class 2 textbooks
"More than 50 per cent of students can't recognise two-digit numbers between 11 and 99. Reason being state universities were working in silos led by secretariat. Many universities are in very bad financial situation, and the government is unable to bail them out," Ravi alleged.
The Conference aims to have detailed deliberations and interactive sessions on a gamut of issues covering Implementation of National Credit Framework, Academic collaborations among Universities, use of Artificial Intelligence to maximise learning outcomes, financial management in educational institutions, research excellence, promoting entrepreneurship, capacity building for learners, creating wealth through Intellectual Property (IP) and careers in rehabilitation of differently abled persons. (ANI)