The Hindu : New Delhi News : What ails education centre?

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Thursday, Sep 09, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

What ails education centre?

FOR A centre that was set up with the objective of evolving benchmarks in the field of elementary education and professionalising primary education, Delhi University's Maulana Azad Centre for Elementary and Social Education (MACESE) seems to have run into more than one problem.

The near-closure of its library may be the latest addition to its long list of troubles, but it is clearly not the only one. Nearly three months after the recommendations of the A. K. Sharma sub-committee regarding the CIE with special focus on the MACESE were submitted, the Department of Education is yet to table it, leave alone discussing the matter.

The committee was formulated to look into the relationship between the sub-units of the Central Institute of Education and the various issues concerning MACESE. One of the recommendations was that the procedure for appointment of a co-ordinator -- one of the major issues of MACESE as of now -- may continue as originally prescribed and that it be initiated by the Head of Department on July 16 and be completed not later than mid-August 2004. Since the report is yet to be tabled, the question of implementing the recommendations by the deadline obviously does not arise.

As per its resolution, MACESE was to be headed by a co-ordinator of a professor's rank from within its faculty for a period of three years after which the post was to be rotated to the person next in seniority.

The Ministry had sanctioned 10 academic posts and eight administrative supporting staff for the Centre, which also has an Academic and Resource Advisory Panel (ARAP), the statutory standing committee of the Faculty of Education for all academic and financial aspects.

The last ARAP meeting was held on September 17, 2003, which was adjourned after a big drama when the then MACESE coordinator, Poonam Batra, resigned from her post due to "severe constraints and obstacles in performing mandates responsibilities as laid down in the constitutional framework due to lack of support from the faculty of education''. One of the main reasons was also the talk of revising MACESE. In fact, some ARAP members even wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor in March this year expressing concern.

"Given the current national priority to elementary education and the crucial role that this prime institution can play in this context, the justification for this revision at this stage is not clear. With the kind of investment the Government is making at this time in elementary education... the demand for resource support on this institution are going to be significant, short notice and recurrent. Our concern is that any revision at this stage is not essential, will deplete MACESE's capacity and delay the process of meeting these demands.''

Another matter of concern to some is the setting up of an interim core group in the absence of a coordinator to look into the work of MACESE, an act that some claim has "bypassed'' the constitutional framework. Interestingly enough, there seems to be even a debate on whether MACESE has a constitutional framework at all, with differences of opinion arising on whether the resolution of MACESE was passed by the Academic and Executive Councils of Delhi University to be considered a constitution and why the Centre is yet to have an Ordinance if the resolution was passed by the Councils.

"The reason for forming the core group was to ensure that the working of MACESE was not affected by the absence of a co-ordinator. Also, we felt that a group of people taking decisions for the Centre was better than that of one person holding the reins,'' says a member of the core group.

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A THREE-DAY-LONG annual HRD symposium was organised by the Masters in Human Resource and Organisational Development Programme of the Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, this past week-end.

The event took off on September 3 with a lecture by Vikram Mall, the HR head of Safeexpress Pvt Ltd., followed by a discussion on operational excellence.

On the second day it was time for a workshop conducted by Delhi University's N.K.Chadha, on dealing with stress management, and another session by D.K. Bakshi of Luxor Writing Instruments Pvt. Ltd. on the concept of "regional diversity and challenges in HR". On the final day of the symposium, a talk was given by Amitava Basu, the Director of Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats Pvt. Ltd., on change management.

Lakshmi B. Ghosh

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