The Hindu : National : Now, a knowledge network

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Friday, Oct 13, 2006
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National

Now, a knowledge network

Special Correspondent

MUMBAI: The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) is to moot a knowledge network connecting universities and institutions to widen the access to knowledge and make available services of faculties and resource persons of one institution to others, according to the Commission chairman, Sam Pitroda.

Dr. Pitroda said on Thursday that the NKC would propose the countrywide dedicated network to the Prime Minister.

Hundred topics

The NKC was working on one hundred different topics examining level of knowledge, its creation and utilisation and the like and preparing crisp reports, which would be submitted to Manmohan Singh. Dr. Pitroda was addressing members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.

The topics included languages, translations, libraries, websites, e-governance, energy, higher education, water, environment among others. The reports would suggest concrete programmes but the NKC would not be a party to their implementation, which would be left to Ministries and departments concerned, he said.

Areas of focus

Dr. Pitroda said that the NKC was focussing on five areas — access to knowledge that begins with literacy that enable the population to acquire, absorb and communicate the knowledge from its sources such as institutions and universities, knowledge creation — particularly research and development in science and technology, knowledge application or utilisation of knowledge in fields, and knowledge services such as e-governance.

`Not up to the mark'

The NKC chairman was not happy with the functioning of the Indian universities and felt that the state of higher education in the country was not up to the mark. Some universities had very large jurisdiction as for instance, Mumbai University that has 500 affiliated colleges.

Dr. Pitroda also questioned the advisability of having a `deemed university.' He said an institution could or could not be a university but wanted to know how it could be a deemed one.

Dr. Pitroda said that the education system in the country was not meeting the demand and potential demands in several areas. For instance, the country's nuclear power programme needed over 5000 scientists and engineers a year but the existing system produced only around 100 a year.

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