Come to India to solve the world’s problems: Sibal

Three bills pertaining to higher education are ready to be presented in parliament on Monday, said Kapil Sibal, Union minister for human resources development. He was speaking at the dedication of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) campus on Saturday.

One bill relates to the setting up of educational tribunals in this country. “That would be necessary as we move forward in reforming the higher education sector. A lot of disputes will emerge, especially in the private sector. We will be confronted with unprecedented issues relating to regulation, accreditation and many others that will need to be resolved,” he said. National, state or regional tribunals will be formed once the bill gets the parliament’s consent.

The second bill is about setting up a national accreditation authority under which the assessment and accreditation agencies will assess institutions.

“We have ensured that this process [accreditation] is mandatory for all higher institutions in the country. We do not want that institutions of dubious quality start imparting education to our children,” he said.

Here, it is necessary for states to come up with their processes and methodologies too. “Each state should set up a council through which it can coordinate with the various institutions to ensure that they go through the accreditation process. The states must take up ownership and realise it is important for them to ensure quality,” he said.

The third bill would be related to the entry of foreign educational institutes into India. This is crucial in a world that has to change its economic model, he said. “When I go around the world, I tell people, you can’t solve the problems of the world by accessing human resource from India. You have to come to India to solve the problems of the world. Once you are able to set up an institution in India and develop the human skills that are required, people might just come to your country. You can’t expect them to come to you. That’s not the economic model for the 21st century,” he said.

Outsourcing has happened in manufacturing and services sector and will happen in education too. But we are not ready for it, the minister emphasised. “We have to ensure that we have systems in place, that we are ready to take advantage of the enormous opportunity that is available to us.”

Voice of academic community
“I don’t hear the voice of the academic community in any debate and I wonder why,” said Sibal, addressing a city “that has very high quality educational institutions and very high quality private investment in the area of science and technology as well as in the public sector”.