Human resource development minister Smriti Irani told Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the power to de-recognise institutes lacking quality should be vested with the National Higher Education Authority — as recommended by the Hari Gautam Committee to review the University Grants Commission’s performance.
Irani said the new statutory agency should have three boards to independently look after various functions of the authority in coordination with each other. “The committee has recommended that instead of undertaking amendments in the UGC Act, 1956, the National Higher Education Authority Act be set up to repeal the Existing UGC Act,” she said.
However, till the time the new act is enacted, it has suggested remodelling the UGC into a changed organisation through executive order, Irani said.
Irani said in her reply: “The committee has recommended that the authority be invested with powers to reward and punish the quality or its absence in higher educational institutions, including the power to de-recognise and or debar the erring institutions…”
German to be taught as optional subject
The government informed Lok Sabha on Wednesday that teaching of German as an optional subject in Kendriya Vidalayas will be formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed between India and Germany.
{{/usCountry}}The government informed Lok Sabha on Wednesday that teaching of German as an optional subject in Kendriya Vidalayas will be formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed between India and Germany.
{{/usCountry}}“Our Mission in Berlin had shared the draft of the proposed MoU with the German side on April 13,” Irani said in a written reply. The MoU reiterates the government’s stand that German will be taught as an optional subject instead of a third language in KVs.
Irani said the MoU aims at imparting communicative German language training to students of KVs and to “work out mechanism for promotion of Indian languages in German educational institutions”.