NCHER bill draws flak from academics

Updated on: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Laudable objective, but objectionable means. This, in essence, was the message conveyed by academia to the task force that drafted the National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill 2010.

Some provisions of the Bill came in for criticism from leading academics at a meeting jointly organised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment in Thiruvananthapuram last week.

The discussion was part of a nationwide initiative being undertaken by the task force to gauge how academia sees the proposed commission and associated reforms in the higher education sector.

While the Vice Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik made it clear at the very beginning that he did not favour the constitution of a national commission, other participants at the meeting said they were comfortable with the broad objectives of the Bill.

Mr. Patnaik readily admitted that there were problems with higher education. Such problems can be solved without a commission. Moreover the NCHER—with enormous concentration of power in its hands—would shrink democratic space in academia and would impinge on the rights of the States in this sector. The commission would not be accountable to anyone.

True, there would be a peer group— the Bill calls it the collegium—but who would the peer group be accountable to? As it stands now the peer group would be a “self-electing club” with no accountability. The method of selecting vice chancellors, as delineated in the Bill, was also criticised by Mr. Patnaik. The Jawaharlal Nehru University—where this noted economist teaches—has a way of selecting its vice chancellor.

This method is enshrined in the JNU Act. Now should the university select a vice chancellor from a list prepared by a body which is apparently answerable to no one, he wanted to know.

That is not all. The Bill speaks of compulsory accreditation. This may result in a situation where the accrediting agency tells an academic that his article that appeared in an Indian weekly would receive only many points because it did not appear in an American journal, he added.

The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Kerala J. V. Vilanilam suggested that the proposed commission have 29 members. This should include 13 academics who represent as many disciplines. There should be 11 permanent members for the NCHER including the chairman.

The collegium should only have permanent members and not core members and co-opted members as suggested by the Bill. The collegium should either have 56 members (two from each State) or 84(three from each State.) There should be at least five regional meetings of the commission in a year; at Delhi, Kolkotta, Maumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

There can be a list of potential vice chancellors alright but inclusion in that list should be done by a committee comprising a representative of the commission, of the collegium and a member nominated either by the Union HRD Minister or by the Minister of Education in a State as the case may be.

The NCHER can prepare reports on the state of education in individual States. But this should have a relation to the reports prepared by the States on their universities. The commission can appoint a committee to oversee quality and standards in Central and State universities. The commission should only have overall supervisory power in the matter of accreditation and granting of degrees, he added. The Vice Chancellor of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies N. K. Jayakumar wanted to know from the task force why they excluded medical and agricultural education from the Bill's ambit.

The collegium should be renamed the general council of the NCHER and should also have as its members the vice chairmen of the State Higher Education Councils. The provision granting life tenure for members of this body should be removed, he directed.

The clause in the Bill which says that any university instituted after the NCHER is formed should get authorisation from the commission before it commences academic operations also came in for criticism from many participants including the Education Minister M. A. Baby.

Task force member and Chairman of the IIT Kanpur M. Anandakrishnan said the Bill is only in its draft form and any provision which caused misgivings can be revisited. The core aim of the task force is to empower universities to have autonomy.

NCHER bill draws flak from academics

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