Yash Pal panel tears into HRD
March 9, 2009: The Times of India
Mumbai: The Union HRD ministry may have downgraded the status of the 27-member Yash Pal Committee to an advisory body, but the panel has lashed out at the ministry on more than a dozen fronts in its final report.
It has slammed the ministry for its ‘‘nervous and hurried response in starting new central universities’’, permitting ‘‘chaotic expansion in higher education’’, allowing undergraduate education to rot and swallowing autonomy through ‘‘intrusive bureaucracy and mindless regulation’’.
The report has attacked the private and public higher education space of the country which neither ‘‘excites students’’ nor ‘‘equips graduates for the real world’’.
Naturally then, the scathing report has left the HRD ministry cold; in turn, it has asked committee members to ‘‘generate public opinion by holding discussions on reforming higher education across the country’’. Early last month, the committee was informed that the ministry had whittled down its position to an advisory body, but members stuck to their recommendations and the original terms of reference.
When the octogenarian educationist personally handed over a copy of the report to HRD minister Arjun Singh, sources said, he was told that the election code of conduct had set in and he could take his report and hold discussions on reforming higher education across the country.
A copy of the final report with this paper vilifies all regulatory inspectors and notes that poor reforms have been the main culprit of several wrong goings in higher education. In these tough times, the panel points out one more bankruptcy — the one in the country’s intellectual banks, universities.
VARSITY REFORMS
Universities should be selfregulatory bodies
Universities to be made responsible for academic content of professional courses
Curricular reforms to be topmost priority of the commission for higher education
Undergraduate programmes to be restructured to allow mobility
No single discipline or specialised university to be created
IITs and IIMs to be converted to full-fledged universities
Single accreditation window for all higher education institutes
