Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal Pradesh Ninong Ering has urged the Centre to give due importance to the universities of Northeast while selecting institutions of eminence.
"The concept of balanced regional development has been ignored in the IOE selection process, and such discrimination will result in chaotic downfall of education standard in the region," Ering said in a letter to Union, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday.
"The Northeastern region has a number of universities which are doing well, and they need to be given greater impetus to promote education," Ering said.
Giving NE universities the IOE status would have encouraged industrialists and foreign educational institutions to come to this region and set up vocational/technical universities, he said.
This could have provided necessary skills, improved the education quality, and possibly reversed the brain drain from the region, he said.