Government cannot walk away from education or health, says Pitroda
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National Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda along with panel members Nandan Nilekani, Jayati Ghosh and Ashok Ganguly, at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday.
NEW DELHI: Staving off criticism it has attracted from stake-holders, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) on Saturday said many of its controversial recommendations — particularly in the realm of higher education — were an attempt to shed the excess baggage from the past and not aimed at facilitating the government’s withdrawal from the social sector.
“Education is the responsibility of the government like health. The government cannot walk away from it,” NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda told mediapersons here after releasing the Commission’s “Report to the Nation 2007.”
Responding to questions on the proposal to set up an Independent Regulatory Authority for High Education (IRAHE), NKC member Deepak Nayyar said the idea was not to do away with the University Grants Commission (UGC) but streamline its functioning.
Of the view that barriers to higher education were very high, Prof. Nayyar said the IRAHE had been conceived as an alternative to the process of setting up universities through legislation. The regulator would also be responsible for monitoring standards. The IRAHE, in NKC’s scheme of things, would streamline regulation of higher education in the country which at present is marked by a multiplicity of regulators, often with overlapping mandates.
Pointing out that the UGC and many other regulatory bodies in different areas of the ‘knowledge sector’ had been established 60 years ago, NKC members sought to drive home the point that the world had changed and so must the system. On foreign universities, the NKC position was that the independent regulator would regulate them and they would have to function as per the norms applicable to any government or private Indian entity.
As to whether the NKC was in favour of reservation for Muslims in education, Jayati Ghosh said the Constitution did not provide for reservation on the basis of religion and the Commission functioned within these parameters. Further, she said there was a need to re-orient official strategies for ensuring better access of Muslim children to schooling outside the madrasas which cater to only four per cent of children from the community.
Asked whether the NKC was only a recommendatory body with little power to ensure implementation of its suggestions, Mr. Pitroda said the Commission was only a “catalyst” in the government’s mission to make education a central instrument for achieving rapid and inclusive growth. The Rs. 3,00,000-crore allocation for education in the XI Plan was a five-fold increase over the last Plan. And the share of education in the total plan had gone up from 7.7 per cent to 20 per cent “representing a credible progress towards the target of six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.”
With recommendations finalised on 20 different sectors of knowledge, the NKC, he said, had embarked on a process of engaging with State governments in as many subjects in their jurisdiction. Their cooperation was central to the success of this “landmark initiative in the history of government planning.”
“Education is the responsibility of the government like health. The government cannot walk away from it,” NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda told mediapersons here after releasing the Commission’s “Report to the Nation 2007.”
Responding to questions on the proposal to set up an Independent Regulatory Authority for High Education (IRAHE), NKC member Deepak Nayyar said the idea was not to do away with the University Grants Commission (UGC) but streamline its functioning.
Of the view that barriers to higher education were very high, Prof. Nayyar said the IRAHE had been conceived as an alternative to the process of setting up universities through legislation. The regulator would also be responsible for monitoring standards. The IRAHE, in NKC’s scheme of things, would streamline regulation of higher education in the country which at present is marked by a multiplicity of regulators, often with overlapping mandates.
Pointing out that the UGC and many other regulatory bodies in different areas of the ‘knowledge sector’ had been established 60 years ago, NKC members sought to drive home the point that the world had changed and so must the system. On foreign universities, the NKC position was that the independent regulator would regulate them and they would have to function as per the norms applicable to any government or private Indian entity.
As to whether the NKC was in favour of reservation for Muslims in education, Jayati Ghosh said the Constitution did not provide for reservation on the basis of religion and the Commission functioned within these parameters. Further, she said there was a need to re-orient official strategies for ensuring better access of Muslim children to schooling outside the madrasas which cater to only four per cent of children from the community.
Asked whether the NKC was only a recommendatory body with little power to ensure implementation of its suggestions, Mr. Pitroda said the Commission was only a “catalyst” in the government’s mission to make education a central instrument for achieving rapid and inclusive growth. The Rs. 3,00,000-crore allocation for education in the XI Plan was a five-fold increase over the last Plan. And the share of education in the total plan had gone up from 7.7 per cent to 20 per cent “representing a credible progress towards the target of six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.”
With recommendations finalised on 20 different sectors of knowledge, the NKC, he said, had embarked on a process of engaging with State governments in as many subjects in their jurisdiction. Their cooperation was central to the success of this “landmark initiative in the history of government planning.”
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