Cusat opposes move to hive off two departments

Updated on: Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The Syndicate of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) will oppose the move to merge the School of Marine Sciences and Industrial Fisheries now under the varsity with the proposed Fisheries University.

Reliable sources at the university told The Hindu on Tuesday that the next Syndicate meet will request the government not to go ahead with the proposed merger. It is learnt that senior Syndicate members had met Education Minister M.A. Baby and requested him not to remove two major schools from the university.

The move is part of the ongoing efforts against the merger with the proposed ‘Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences'. Students of the School of Marine Sciences and Industrial Fisheries have also stepped up their agitation against the merger move.

Sources said that the bifurcation of the departments including marine biology, atmospheric science, marine geology and geophysics, physical oceanography and chemical oceanography will deprive the research status owned by Cusat. According to official estimates, nearly 40 per cent of the research under the university is being carried out by these departments.

The opposition against the merger move intensified after it was found that Chapter 12 Miscellaneous of the Ordinance for the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences states that ‘Notwithstanding anything contained in the existing Universities Act, the statutes, ordinances, regulations or orders made there under, Aquatic Biology and Fisheries of Kerala University, College of Fisheries of Kerala Agricultural University and School of Marine Sciences and Industrial Fisheries of Cochin University shall be disaffiliated by the government notification or gazette and maintained by the Fisheries University'.

According to Chapter 73 (2) and (3), ‘the control and management of all the educational institutions and the research will be transferred to the new university. All the property, assets, liabilities and obligations of the government in relation thereto shall stand transferred to vest in, or devolve upon, the new university'.

Cusat opposes move to hive off two departments

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