Media Release

Mangalore, Oct 26: A two-day national level conference cum workshop on’ Autonomy - Concept, issues
and challenges ‘ organized jointly by St Aloysius College and St Agnes College, Mangalore on October 23 and 24 at St Aloysius College concluded with a declaration known as “Mangalore Declaration on Autonomy With Accountability in Karnataka”.

A gathering of over 120 delegates consisting of representatives of Managements, Principals, senior faculty and administrative staff from 18 autonomous colleges from across the state and also from the states of Maharashtra, Goa and Tamilnadu after a two-day intensive deliberations on the theme have jointly accepted a nine-point resolutions namely to urge the state government to accept Autonomy as national policy strictly in accordance with UGC 11 Plan guidelines on autonomy, to urge the Government of Karnataka to come out with Revised New Common Statute on Autonomy in the state in accordance with the UGC Guidelines to all autonomous colleges in the state and also to request the Government to enact
the revised statues within six months.

Further, the conference resolved to form a JOINT FORUM OF AUTONOMOUS COLLEGES comprising
of Managements, Principals and teachers of all the autonomous colleges in the state with Mangalore as the centre and work together for the cause of effective implementation and execution of autonomy in the state, to form A FIVE MEMBER EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE to prepare a working paper for the drafting of Common Statutes applicable to all Universities uniformly in the state. It will be submitted to the government in the next 15 days, to urge the Government and Universities to give representation to autonomous colleges in the Academic Council and Syndicates and any other Statutory and
non statutory bodies of the Universities to which they are affiliated.

Further it was decided to review the Affiliation, Registration and the other kinds of Fees levied by
the universities and rationalize such fees uniformly throughout the state in all Universities, to urge the Government to create separate cell on Autonomy in the higher Education Department as well as in all Universities for dealing with issues on Autonomy, to request the Government to play a proactive role in granting autonomous status to more deserving colleges across the state and to request the government to initiate an awareness programme about the concept and issues of autonomy by involving all the officers of University at the state level.

The conference was inaugurated by well-known educationist, administrator and former Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, Dr N.R. Shetty. While inaugurating the confernence Dr Shetty informed that the affiliation system is in nowhere in the world except in Indian subcontinent. He also said that an expert committee has strongly recommended to Government of Karnataka that more and more deserving
colleges should be made autonomous strictly in accordance with the provisions of UGC guidelines.

The Chairman of IIT Kanpur, former Vice Chancellor of Anna University and an eminent authority in the field of Higher Education Padmashree DrAnandakrishnan while delivering the key note address touched upon all aspects of autonomy and he felt the autonomy is the only way to move forward in the direction of qualitatively upgrading higher education. He gave a call to the autonomous colleges not to give up the privileges of autonomy but keep demanding with every authority at the national and state level by impressing upon them the benefits of autonomy.

Dr Bernard D’Sami of Loyal College Chennai and Dr Aloysius Sequeira of NIT - K Suratkal were the other two resource persons. The seminar cum workshop was co-ordinated by Dr A.M Narahari, registrar, St Aloysius Colleges and Dr B K Vishala of St Agnes College.