The Hindu : Amreek Singh blames HRD Ministry for higher education ills

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 26, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Amreek Singh blames HRD Ministry for higher education ills

By R. Sampath

VISAKHAPATNAM, JAN. 25. Eminent academician, Amreek Singh, put the blame squarely on the Ministry of Human Resources Development for the messy state of higher education in the country.

"The mandarins of the HRD Ministry have not been doing their homework, with the result, the policy decisions on the educational front are drawing flak from all quarters, including the Supreme Court,'' he averred in an exclusive interview with The Hindu.

Dr. Singh felt that the ruling of the apex court would certainly be helpful, but it could not decide the policy. "The court is only an interpreter of law and cannot make law. Further, it lacks the mechanism to execute its pronouncements.''

He asserted that it would not be that easy for the court to deal with an educational issue as it would do in respect of minority rights, in which issues pertaining to the Constitution are raised. It was for the HRD Ministry to decide matters concerning education, in consultation with its wings like the University Grants Commission and the All-Indian Council of Technical Education, he said.

"Basically, had there been such a unified line of approach on the part of the HRD Ministry, the Supreme Court would have no other way except to accept such a policy,'' Dr. Singh said, citing how the court had to revise its own pronouncement in 2002 on the fee structure issue of private professional colleges. "In my opinion, the HRD Ministry's views must prevail on the education policy.'' The educationist expressed his anguish over the mushrooming of professional colleges without adequate infrastructural facilities and faculty and remarked: "Education has become a sort of entrepreneurial venture, wherein the operators with a profit motive see big business.''

Could this malady be remedied? "It is not difficult to redeem the situation. There must be a change of mindset among promoters of such colleges. A few decades ago, in Manipal (Karnataka), professional colleges came into being offering seats based on donations. But the Manipal people ploughed back the money raised that way and increased the infrastructural facilities for furthering the cause of higher education. The hospitals they have built and the laboratories they have established are extraordinarly excellent. Manipal should be the model for prospective promoters of institutions of higher learning. "What ails the current education system?" The lack of leadership among teachers. They are a hopelessly divided lot, with a pronounced trade union mentality of promoting sectional interests.

In fact, teachers should rise above such a tendency and enable the HRD Ministry to evolve a unified line of approach in policy matters. Politicians and bureaucrats are there only to shape the policy in line with the thinking of the academic community. Ours is a soft society, wherein people involved do not raise their voice against any aberration creeping into the system. Laxity and politicisation are meekly accepted and we always try to explain things away.''

Dr. Singh would like the teaching community to mould public opinion in favour of the policy evolution in the right perspective.

He also regretted that the budget allocation for education stood below four per cent, while as early as in 1966 the Kothari Commission had recommended six per cent of gross domestic product for the purpose.

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