Sibal for revamping of country's education system

The country's education system is set for a total revamp with the new HRD minister, Kapil Sibal, planning to put in place a process to bring in transparency and accountability in institutions and curb unethical practices, including capitation fees.

"I am going to restructure the complete education system in the country. We need to restructure the system so that we do not need to go through the punitive routes," HRD minister Kapil Sibal said in an interview.

There has to be "corrective steps with human face", he said against the backdrop of a raging controversy over huge capitation fees being demanded by professional colleges from students, including one medical college said to be run by a Union Minister from Tamil Nadu.

The measures under the revamping process will include expansion, access to quality education for all sections of society and review of the procedure for grant of 'Deemed-to-be -University' status.
    
The new mechanism will also have steps to check capitation fees by professional colleges and setting up of a national council for higher education as a regulatory body.

On reports of two Tamil Nadu-based institutions allegedly demanding huge capitation fees, Sibal said the ministry will "rethink" the process under which institutions are given the 'Deemed-to-be-University' status and will set up a committee to review the functioning of the existing ones.

Sibal said government has frozen all applications of aspiring deemed universities and the ministry was conducting a thorough review of the functioning of such universities now.

"We will rethink the structure in which all this must happen. At the moment, it is happening under Section 3 of the UGC Act. Therefore, it is under the control of the UGC and we will do a rethinking to what must be put in place to enable our systems to be transparent and accountable and to maintain the issues of excellence, equity and quality," he said.

Sibal said UGC, which plays a crucial role in the grant of 'Deemed-to-be-University status' can independently review the functioning of the institutions.

"But the ministry will conduct its own assessment. The ministry will set up its own committee. Very soon the committee will be set up. They will visit the deemed universities, may be the last 50 institutions which were given deemed university status.

"The report will come in the next three months. Depending on the gravity of violations of guidelines, the ministry will take actions which could include withdrawal of 'deemed-to-be-university' status from the errant institutions.
    
"But that really is the punitive route. I don't think the country moves forward in punitive routes. We need to restructure the system so that we do not need to go through punitive routes. That is what we will do and that will be part of the agenda for the next 100 days," he said.

"The committees will look at faculty-students ratio, infrastructure and all those issues. And in case of gross violation of guidelines, the status will be withdrawn. We are not interested in hurting institutes. The idea is to ensure that people get what they are promised," Sibal said.

The government will take "corrective step with human face" and ensure that institutions do not get away with it.
    
Asked about any mechanism being planned to check the capitation fees charged by professional institutions in the country, Sibal said the new policy, being planned for deemed universities, will take care of the issue in other institutions too.

"Do not worry. We are aware of it. We will take a holistic view and a cohesive structure will be put in place to deal with all the issues, not only in universities, but also in all institutions," he said.

To ensure accountability and transparency in institutions, the minister said the government would also ask the private colleges to put out the names of their faculty with photographs on their websites.

"Why cannot they put out their faculty in their websites? If one person runs three institutions, let him put out the names of the faculty members in the websites with their photographs, so there is no duplication. These are transparent measures. This should be done in schools as well," he said.

As part of the restructuring, the government will set up a National Higher Education Council as suggested by the National Knowledge Commission and the Yash Pal committee.

"When we move forward to reform and restructure the education sector, the report of the Yash Pal committee as well as NKC will be taken into account and will be pivotal in our movement forward," he said.

Asked whether the council will replace the existing regulatory bodies like UGC and AICTE, Sibal did not prefer to comment.

The minister said the focus of the restructuring will be to ensure quality and equity to ensure that all sections, including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims get education.
    
"You must marry all of these together -- equity, access and quality. There must be our homegrown educational system which must deal with these. We are going to devise our own model to fulfil our peoples' concerns," he said.
    
The country's youths need to be provided opportunities to help them to compete with the rest of the world. The restructuring will aim at this objective also, Sibal added.