Tuesday, November 27, 2012

REFORMS: EDUCATING THE REGULATORY BODIES FOR A CHANGE

B&E’s Managing Editor Sutanu Guru wrote on this literate dilemma two issues back; you missed it, he knew it, we’re re-running it... diligently!

Report after report and study after study has revealed the tragic truth that while India churns out millions of graduates and hundreds of thousands of doctors, engineers and managers, most of them simply do not have the basic skills required for the demanding job opportunities that 21st century India is creating. In short, India is spawning leagues of unemployable literates. The key is for the higher education system in India to ‘produce employable’ youngsters. And what better a strategy than promoting the entry of foreign institutions, already at the cutting edge of globalisation and education benchmarks that are extremely pertinent to the new world.

At the heart of the problem are lack of resources and role of UGC and AICTE, the two bodies that are supposed to regulate higher education. Admits former NCERT Director J.S Rajput to B&E, “It is a fact that the government does not have requisite resources to maintain standards in higher education. So, the role and responsibilities of private educational institutions become critical.”

Experts comment that though UGC and AICTE could have moved mountains in improving India’s higher education framework, both of them currently face a crisis of quality, and to a certain extent, credibility. Says Dinanath Batra, Convener of the Shikhsha Bachao Andolan, “Now, the PM places more trust on reports of the Knowledge Commission.” According to the President of Centre for Civil Society, Partha Shah, the basic problem with UGC and AICTE is that they have not changed with the times. Clearly, instead of acting as change agents and effective regulators, they continue to adhere to rulebooks that have grown old beyond what today’s demanding higher education sector requires. It is not that the UGC and AICTE were set up with the objective of stopping the growth of education. In fact, these two institutions were once upon a time not so long back seen as perpetrators of processes and structures in the education sector that could have radically transformed the promised growth into higher figures. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, transformation got replaced by ‘regulation’, a factor that now seems to be stifling higher education to a point of death.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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