After schools, Sibal ready to fix higher education
The government plans to set up a new education commission and smoothen the entry of foreign players in higher education among other things, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told HT recently. Chetan Chauhan reports.
The government plans to set up a new education commission and smoothen the entry of foreign players in higher education among other things, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told HT recently.
The proposed National Commission for Higher Education and Research will start working before the beginning of the 2010-11 academic year and will have best of both the Yashpal Committee and the National Knowledge Commission, the bodies that recommended sweeping changes in higher education regulation.
Existing regulatory bodies like University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education will cease to exist once the commission starts functioning.
“The idea is to give the job of regulation to experts in each specific field rather than to administrators,” Sibal said.
A draft of the proposed commission circulated to different ministries speaks of a six-member commission to regulate different streams such as technical education, medical education, architecture, general education, research and scholarships.
The commission would be an autonomous body like the Election Commission of India
For this to happen, the draft has suggested that the Prime Minister should make appointments to the commission.
Along with the new commission, the government will also have a law to enable it to accredit all higher education professional institutes within a timeframe—defaulters would be fined upto Rs 50 lakhs—
In addition, the HRD ministry has circulated Cabinet notes for a law to allow entry of Foreign Education Providers, against educational malpractices and for setting up educational tribunals to settle disputes between different stakeholders.
