Yash Pal committee has given all the ideas - including the setting up of a higher education commission - that the new government needs to implement to reform the education system.
The new government gives hope for a new state of affairs in higher education. The ideas have already been provided by the Prof Yash Pal Committee. What is envisaged is an autonomous body on the lines of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Election Commission, more like the former than the latter, as committee members tell you. This body, to be called the Higher Education Commission (HEC), will allow institutions and universities academic and financial independence provided they stick to some broad guidelines.
So what happens to the human resources development ministry? There is little space for the ministry, or bodies like the University Grants Commission, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Medical Council of India, if the HEC is to be.
And yet, these may exist without any academic role. The ministry that is formed by the new government has to oversee the birth of the HEC and yet resist the temptation of controlling it. Will the new education minister be able to do this?
Two persons, former Administrative Reforms Commission chairman Veerappa Moily and former science and technology minister Kapil Sibal are being named as possible candidates for the ministership.
If they control the institution, then there won’t be a new institution, says Prof Apoorvanand, a teacher in the Delhi University and a consultant for the Yash Pal Committee.
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Academic circles are confident that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take the committee’s report seriously. And they are hoping that a person like Moily, who steered the OBC quota committee and then the Administrative Reforms Commission, will fit the bill.
The higher education commission is to be headed by the prime minister, the chief justice of India and the leader of opposition and assisted by a board of academics overseeing educational matters without intruding in the affairs of institutes and universities. While the report of the committee does not say so, Apoorvanand says Sebi is the role model.
If Sebi can work as a regulator in the field of markets, then why can’t there be a Sebi-like regulator for educational institutions which allows them independence and yet derecognises them the moment they don’t follow the guidelines.
The committee’s draft report is yet to give these guidelines. Performance indicators are yet to be worked out and could include how inclusive an institute is, or its role in production of knowledge. Grant of funds could be linked to these indicators.
Universities have also been redefined by the committee, which says the educational bodies have to broaden their subject profile in order to become universities. In case they are keen to remain single-speciality institutes, they should be free to remain diploma-issuing bodies provided they stick to the given guidelines, it says.
There are several diploma-giving institutes that have a reputation in their fields like the Indian Institutes of Management, which have not bothered to get affiliation from the AICTE or the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. There are some in the private sector too, besides the Law University in Bangalore. Prof Apoorvanand said for the committee, the IIMs were a role model as far as governance was concerned.
More serious is the issue of curriculum. Does it have to be in reference to the subject, the developing world of knowledge, and society? Or is it just meant to cater to the examination system?
These are some questions and answers before the new government and its new education minister.