'Hopeful about passage of crucial legislations on education'

Updated on: Monday, March 14, 2011

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today expressed hope that crucial legislations on reforming higher education, which have already been tabled in the Parliament, will be passed by this year.
He said while Parliamentary Standing Committee reports are awaited on some of these bills, reports of some other legislations like the Copyright (Amendment) Bill have already been presented.

Key legislations, currently being studied by the Parliamentary panel include the Foreign Education Bill and the Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill.

"All these legislation, I hope will be passed within this year," Sibal told reporters on the sidelines of a function here, adding the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Bill would be tabled today in the Parliament.

He also said the Education Tribunal Bill, which was deferred by the Rajya Sabha last year, will be taken up, but did not disclose when.

Sibal hoped that these legislations would pave way for bringing quality in the education sector and keep a tab on those institutes who indulge in business in the name of education.

Speaking on higher education at the 'Edge conference', Sibal underlined on the primacy of teachers and their role in shaping the future of higher education but at the same time rued that the community has not received the recognition it deserves.

"Unfortunately in the last 60 years, the kind of primacy the teaching community should have been accorded, has not been given by an environment, that is not considered that to be of prime value", he said.

"I think that must change radically," he said while asking the best minds to join this profession.

"The best minds of the country must move away from being IAS, must move away from being engineers, must move away from being management consultants and move into the teaching profession," he said.

The nation at the same time "must ensure that the teaching profession gets highest priority and quality framework of our country," he said.

Talking about the importance of IT in the education sector, he said every institution will be connected through fibre optics. The connection would cover 26,000 colleges and 600 universities.

'Hopeful about passage of crucial legislations on education'

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