New Bihar governor faces tough challenge in reviving state’s higher education system

Patna: Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain, who took oath as the 43rd governor of Bihar on Saturday, will have several tough tasks at hand as the ex-officio chancellor of the state universities in streamlining the higher education system of the state.

A highly decorated Indian Army officer, Hasnain has already served as the chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir (CUK) from 2018 to 2023 and is well acquainted with the intricacies of university administration.




In Bihar, despite some recent attempts made by his predecessor Arif Mohammed Khan and the Bihar govt, the state universities remain far behind their counterparts in other states in terms of academic performance at the national level. Of nearly two dozen universities in the state, not a single state university has so far been accredited with an ‘A’ grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Nor does any university figure in the list of the top 100 institutions under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

Even though there are 260 constituent colleges in the state, there are very few scholars of even national repute. Research output from these institutions is far from satisfactory and their publications are almost negligible, academics said.

In fact, almost all academic institutions in the state are facing an acute shortage of teachers and non-teaching staff, hampering their academic growth. Although some assistant professors in different subjects have been appointed by the Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) in recent years, thousands of sanctioned posts are still lying vacant in various universities.

The Lok Bhawan has recently initiated a move to change the criterion for the appointment of assistant professors by introducing a written test. Accordingly, a draft statute proposing changes in the methodology is awaiting the approval of the state govt and the chancellor. The new chancellor will have to examine the draft statute carefully before putting his seal on it in the larger interest of poor but talented unemployed candidates.

The working president of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations of Bihar (FUTAB), Kanhaiya Bahadur Sinha, said the new chancellor would have to expedite the appointment of new vice-chancellors in universities that are currently functioning on an ad-hoc basis due to the absence of regular VCs. He will also have to take a final decision on the fate of Patna University (PU) vice-chancellor Ajay Kumar Singh, who has been under ‘suspension’ for the last six months, he said.

Hasnain will also have to take a tough stand on the delayed academic sessions in the universities. Sessions are running late by more than a year as examinations are not held on time and results are declared very late. Consequently, bright students of the state have to suffer an irreparable loss due to ‘missed’ job opportunities because of delayed results, said Patna College’s retired principal Nawal Kishore Chaudhary.