UGC has failed, scrap it, says HRD panel
Akshaya Mukul
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New Delhi:
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One of the first committees set up by HRD minister Smriti Z Irani to review the working of University Grants Commission (UGC) has said the regulator has not only “failed to fulfill its mandate but also has not been able to deal with emerging diverse complexities“ and should be replaced by a National Higher Education Authority .Headed by former UGC chairperson Hari Gautam, the committee has said any “restructuring“ of UGC will be a “futile“ exercise, as will amend ing the UGC Act. Therefore, it has recommended the setting up of a new authority through an act of Parliament and prepared a draft bill. Till such time a body is set up, the panel says, the HRD ministry can bring about changes in UGC through an executive order.
Ministry sources said the recommendations were “farreaching“ and “will be looked into seriously“. Among the committee's other suggestions are a national research aptitude test for PhD admission and teaching of yoga and transcendental meditation. The HRD committee also rec ommends doing away with the 10-year criterion for professors to become vice-chancellors.
The two-volume report submitted by the committee to the ministry says UGC is “plagued in the main by reductionism in its functioning“.“It (UGC) has side-stepped its function of being a sentinel of excellence in education and embraced the relatively easier function of funding education.“
The report says the UGC staff is unhappy as only “few find favour and are delegated with powers to perform in important areas while many of them are left out with hardly much to contribute... It is said that they are pushed around through an element of fear and threat. The overall impression is that there is a manmade crisis which seems to be cause of unhealthy ambience and poor performance of UGC.“
Coming down heavily on the functioning of the top levels, the committee says the UGC chairperson “should be advised to strictly keep a vigilant track of the various performance areas“ and “assess the contribution at all levels“.
The chairperson, it adds, should spend more time in his “seat“ than go around the “country and the world on occasions that have not much relevance for the system he governs“. The committee has recommended that the chairperson's performance “be assessed once after three years and then at the end of his tenure of five years by a committee constituted by HRD“.
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Ministry sources said the recommendations were “farreaching“ and “will be looked into seriously“. Among the committee's other suggestions are a national research aptitude test for PhD admission and teaching of yoga and transcendental meditation. The HRD committee also rec ommends doing away with the 10-year criterion for professors to become vice-chancellors.
The two-volume report submitted by the committee to the ministry says UGC is “plagued in the main by reductionism in its functioning“.“It (UGC) has side-stepped its function of being a sentinel of excellence in education and embraced the relatively easier function of funding education.“
The report says the UGC staff is unhappy as only “few find favour and are delegated with powers to perform in important areas while many of them are left out with hardly much to contribute... It is said that they are pushed around through an element of fear and threat. The overall impression is that there is a manmade crisis which seems to be cause of unhealthy ambience and poor performance of UGC.“
Coming down heavily on the functioning of the top levels, the committee says the UGC chairperson “should be advised to strictly keep a vigilant track of the various performance areas“ and “assess the contribution at all levels“.
The chairperson, it adds, should spend more time in his “seat“ than go around the “country and the world on occasions that have not much relevance for the system he governs“. The committee has recommended that the chairperson's performance “be assessed once after three years and then at the end of his tenure of five years by a committee constituted by HRD“.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com
