Give more autonomy to educational institutions: Panel

Updated on: Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A government panel today favoured giving more autonomy to central educational institutions to help them recruit faculty at higher salary and spend money on various projects without any hassle.
The Higher Education Roundtable, headed by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, today discussed the ideas and decided to set up a sub-committee to consider the issue and suggest measures, a HRD Ministry official said.

The roundtable, comprising experts like Hari Bhartia, Survi Banerjee, Debasis Chaterjee and M S Ananth, also discussed issues like introducing separate accounting practices for educational institutions.

Experts felt that CEIs, which are autonomous institutions, are not able to appoint any faculty or officials without the permission of the ministry. Besides, the appointments are made purely by government rules which at times can become a deterrent in attracting good faculty. They said the institutes should enjoy the power to appoint faculty with higher salary packages.

Private bodies, which want to donate funds for educational institutions, should be able to do so, experts felt. They can start special chairs in institutions. Those chairs can provide funds towards recruitment of faculty at differential salary, the experts said.

This model will not add any financial burden on the institutions or government but help them attract good faculty who want better packages. This was one of the recommendations of the National knowledge Commission.

The committee will submit its report in three months after which it will go the Cabinet for consideration.

Give more autonomy to educational institutions: Panel

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