Stress on autonomy to improve quality of higher education

Updated on: Monday, March 14, 2011

The two-day Universities of India 2011 Global Higher Education Summit began at Mamallapuram on Friday with speakers stressing the importance of autonomy and removal of controls for improving the quality of higher education.

Confederation of Indian Industry and Mindlogicx, a higher education solution providing company, are organising the summit along with the Association of Indian Universities. The event also saw the launch of the University – Industry Congress.

In his address, N. R. Madhava Menon, former member of Law Commission of India, said that a few important Bills were pending in Parliament and if they were passed, the country would witness radical changes in higher education.

These include the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill. Accreditation and evaluation were basic for ensuring quality and this should be done by professionals. Secondly, The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Institutions and Universities Bill too was pending. Collection of capitation fee and other ills prevailing in universities could be done away with and there were provisions to levy a penalty upto Rs.50 lakh, Mr. Menon pointed.

The Educational Tribunals Bill and the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill too were pending in Parliament, Mr. Menon said, appealing to the CII and its members to lobby for passing these Bills as vested interests were preventing them from being enacted.

Stating that the present system of university education was inhibiting innovation, he said courses designed by educational institutions under the influence of market forces and for fetching jobs for students were wrong. “Students who are aware of the opportunities of the new economy will be agents of change,” he said. Autonomy coupled with accountability would ensure an improvement of overall education, Mr. Menon said.

Anjan Das, Senior Director, CII, said that they were fortunate to be associated with educational institutions in the first year itself of the ‘decade of innovation, 2011-2020.' Some of the challenges ahead were to create benchmarks to identify some of the best educational institutions from the perspective of the industry.

Suresh Elangovan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mindlogicx, said that unlike the education system in U.S. which was free, there were lot of restrictions in India. However, despite the bureaucratic hurdles and political pressures, teachers and Vice-Cchancellors were contributing tremendously by providing values in the institutions.

Y. S. Rajan, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor, Indian Space Research Organisation, during an interaction with the gathering, said that all controls on the educational system had to go. He said such university-industry interactions were being held for the eighth time since 2005.

Stress on autonomy to improve quality of higher education

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