Akashdeep Vaak
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 26th
The student protests over the postponement of elections to the Senate, the governing body of Punjab University, were one of the major events that took place on the campus in 2024. Other important events were the much-awaited recruitment of full-time faculty members since 2014, a first-ever victory for Panjab University. An independent candidate for the post of Punjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) president, BJP-backed students’ wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad candidate wins first time in PUCSC polls without an alliance. Furthermore, under the banner of Panjab University Bachao Morcha, student organizations staged a protest against the postponement of the Senate polls, which are still ongoing due to lack of support from the majority of students, student unions and campus parties. .
For the first time in a while, mainstream political leaders, mainly from Congress, gathered on campus to extend support to the student movement against the postponement of the Senate vote. Protesting students have clashed with police twice this year. The first time was when they allegedly tried to disrupt Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann’s speech at the Law Auditorium and then blocked Gate No. 2 of the campus days later. Regarding the first incident, an FIR was registered against 14 students.
The university achieved strong results in the QS University Asia Rankings, rising from 301-350 to 269th out of 984 institutions in Asia. The overall score improved from 37 to 41.8 in 2024 to 38.2 to 43.2 this year, maintaining a ranking of 601 to 800, but the university also ranked in the Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the third consecutive year. faced a decline in ranking. The university ranked 41st overall in 2022 with a score of 51.23, and 44th with a score of 53.31 last year, but has dropped to 60th with a score of 52.99 in the latest list. According to teachers and experts, PU suffers from the major drawback of lack of full-time faculty and has not been able to improve much in many parameters, especially in research. Visiting faculty members cannot supervise scholars.
Recognizing the seriousness of the situation, the university finally began recruiting full-time faculty members this year. The authorities tried to fill about 50 positions advertised in 2022, but due to the time-consuming process of pre-screening, screening and interviews, it was not possible to fill all the vacancies.
This year, voters elected a mixed council with independent Anurag Dalal as president. Archit Garg of NSUI will be the vice-chairman and Vineet Yadav of INSO will be the secretary. The BJP-backed ABVP has a chance to come to power for the first time in 13 years with Jasinder Rana elected to the joint secretary post.
In another first, many students received prerecorded phone calls asking them or their families to secure support for a particular presidential candidate.
As 2024 draws to a close, Punjab University reflects on a year that has seen both challenges and progress. The Senate remains a point of contention between protesters and authorities, and several days this year could still bring some news to officials and students.
