Karnataka - Bangalore   

Wind up National Knowledge Commission: expert

Special Correspondent

SHARING A THOUGHT: (From left) President of FUCTA A.M. Narahari, Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor H.A. Ranganath, Director of Collegiate Education Kodanda Ramaiah and V.K. Tewari, general secretary of AIFUCTO at a seminar in Bangalore on Sunday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Bangalore: The Government should wind up the National Knowledge Commission and set up a body on the lines of the Kothari Commission on Education of the mid-1960s that recommended a public-funded education system based on the neighbourhood common school system, said V.K. Tewari, general secretary of the All-India Federation of University College Teachers' Organisations.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Bangalore University College Teachers' Association, he termed the National Knowledge Commission's recent recommendations on higher education "dangerous".

They focussed on furthering the corporate sector's agenda of economic liberalisation that envisaged withdrawal of the State from education, he said.

Citing specific features that drive this agenda, he said the commission wanted the University Grants Commission to be made only a funding agency.

It wanted an independent regularity authority for higher education to be set up as a single-window agency to authorise new colleges and monitor their functioning. This would facilitate the entry of foreign education providers and private investors, he said.

Pitroda assailed

Coming down on the commission chairman Sam Pitroda's effort at "dehistoricising" the education system by doing away with the egalitarian values of the earlier commissions, Mr. Tewari said the recommendations were no different from the earlier Ambani-Birla Report on Education, 2000, which had a pro-industry agenda.

Mr. Pitroda was also "undemocratic" in his style of functioning. He refused to hold consultations with teachers' bodies before framing these recommendations and overruled voices of dissent like that of P.M. Bharvaga, who had removed from his post as vice-chairperson of the commission.

A.M. Narahari, president of the Federation of University and College Teachers' Association in Karnataka, pointed out that the commission had suggested that universities lease or sell their excess land to augment their resources.

H.A. Ranganath, Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University, who was the chief guest, said forums such as teachers' unions, and not the government or the university, could suggest ways of making university education more vibrant.

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