Vijay Barve: 'Progress in education will dictate the destiny of India' Sam Pitroda

Sunday, January 20, 2008

'Progress in education will dictate the destiny of India' Sam Pitroda

NEW DELHI: Noting that progress in education will "dictate the destiny" of India in the next century, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) feels there is "resistance" at various levels in the government to new ideas in the education field.

"There is still resistance at various levels in the government to new ideas, experimentation, process re-engineering, external interventions, transparency and accountability due to rigid organisational structures with territorial mindsets," NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda said.

There was a need to create various collaborative models, dispelling mutual suspicions. Public-private-partnerships, academia-industry partnerships, academia-research laboratories and others would need to be the models rather than working in separate compartments, he said after submitting the second annual "Report to the Nation" to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"Our country is too large, too complex and too diverse for 'one size fits all' solutions and decentralisation and community participation at the local level would be key to devising effective programmes for implementation, Pitroda told reporters.

In its recommendations on higher education, the NKC said there was an urgent need to restructure the system of affiliated undergraduate colleges which no longer provided a viable model for quality higher education.

Recommending an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE), at an arms length from all stakeholders, it said, "a plethora of regulations without adequate autonomy or accountability for institutions has resulted in a system that is over regulated and under governed."

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