The Hindu : Court calls for national blueprint on professional education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 07, 2003

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Court calls for national blueprint on professional education

By J. Venkatesan

New Delhi Nov. 6. A five-Judge Constitution Bench, headed by the Chief Justice, V.N. Khare, has called for a national blueprint and road map for the development of professional higher education in technical, managerial, science and the humanities at least for the next five years. The present ad-hoc approach and stampede should be eliminated.

Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, in his separate but concurring judgment on a batch of petitions involving medical education, said the development of professional education should be based on maintaining credible level of quality standards and the anticipated demand structure in economic and social sectors.

"When we consider the size of our country and the large number of institutions and huge volume of applicants, the manhours and money lost in running around for getting certificates during admission season must run into the equivalent of several crores of rupees," he said.A more hassle-free system for authenticating the required information from students should be evolved to obviate the difficulties of students and parents running around for obtaining various certificates (such as community, migration, eligibility).Every student should be provided with a basic identity certificate while he/she was in the 10th or 12th standard and it should contain all essential information such as the date of birth, community, domicile, etc., authenticated by a designated official.This should be acceptable for admission requirements in any institution and in any State.

Mr. Justice Lakshmanan said a rule should be incorporated in the Prevention of Capitation Fee Act that collecting any fee that was not previously announced in the college publications and any fee collected without a formal receipt should be punishable offences and this rule should be strictly enforced.

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