Shillong, May 4: The Hynñiewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Friday asked the Meghalaya government to initiate an investigation in connection with the publication of school textbooks which have major errors and described it “intentional errors” which aimed at destroying the image of Meghalaya and the Meghalaya Board State of School Education (MBoSE).

The HYC also urged the Meghalaya government to establish a state university and provide 80 percent reservation for students of the state in government funded institutions including colleges.

In a memorandum submitted to Education Minister, Lahkmen Rymbui here on Friday, HYC general secretary Robertjune Kharjahrin urged the government to take necessary steps to set up a state university, as at present, Meghalaya has a university which was established by the Central government.

“Meghalaya has attained statehood for 46 years and many governments have come and gone, but none of them have come up with any concrete steps to set up the state’s own university,” he said.

He also said that though the state has passed a law for setting up of a state technical university in the name of Captain Williamson Sangma, but till now this university has not come up till now.

“The only university catering to the needs of students for post graduate studies, technical as well as professional education, is the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) which was set up by Centre for students of North East. The fact is that, not even 2 per cent out of thousands of students who complete their graduation every year got the opportunity to take admission in NEHU for further studies,” Kharjahrin said.

The HYC leader said that the Minister said that at the moment, the state government wanted to start the State Technical University at Tura and make it functional.

“If we have our own state university, it will encourage our students to further take up studies and engage in research works, besides generating employment opportunities for the people,” he said.

The HYC also asked the government to intervene regarding the need to make MIL a compulsory subject in Class XI and XII in MBOSE affiliated schools in the state and include events and history related to the Khasi community in syllabus.

HYC education secretary Roy Kupar Synrem said that minister said that he would seek a report to know the reason behind the decision to make MIL as elective subject instead of compulsory subject, and also take steps to include history of the Khasi community in syllabus.

The HYC also demanded from the State government to set up an inquiry into the publication of school textbooks by the MBoSE where major errors in textbooks have been detected and such errors in textbooks would mislead the students.

“We want a thorough inquiry into this anomaly as it was not only errors were not merely a typing mistake, but the errors were intentional, and a criminal conspiracy cannot be ruled out between the publishers of the textbooks and some vested interests who wanted to destroy MBoSE,” Kharjahrin said.

Questioning the manner in which the textbooks were published hurriedly, the HYC also wondered that major errors were detected in the textbooks despite a group of experts had been formed to look into the matter related to publication of textbooks.

“If the government fails to conduct an inquiry, we would not hesitate to file an FIR against the people in MBoSE,” Kharjahrin warned.

He said that before the academic session starts this year, the HYC had already raised this issue but the government and the MBoSE were not serious and did not pay any heed.

The other issues raised by HYC before the Minister include concern over exorbitant fees charged by private schools, which the Minister has assured to study Acts implemented in other states regarding the need to regulate private and semi government institutions.

The HYC also demanded setting up of government colleges in all the 60 Assembly constituencies to which the Minister said that the state government was already in the process of setting up community colleges.

The HYC also stressed on the need to improve education system in the state, encourage Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects in schools, fix minimum salary for teachers in private and semi government institutions, implement the State Eligibility Test for appointment of teachers/lecturers in various government institutions, timely payment of salary to teachers, implement RTE Act and Rules in letter and spirit, increase the scholarship for students and release it at the earliest to students, exempt submission of income affidavit of parents for availing scholarships especially for BPL families, improvement of infrastructure of different institutions.