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Regulatory authority for education needed: MP

PUDUCHERRY: Member of Parliament M. Ramadass on Saturday stressed the need for establishing a separate regulatory authority for education for carrying out academic work and coordinating with universities, while confining the University Grants Commission (UGC) to funding purposes.

Inaugurating a UGC-sponsored two-day national conference on ‘Landscaping tertiary education for a sustainable knowledge society,’ held by Bharathidasan Government College for Women, he said, “All coordinating work of higher education should be entrusted with a regulatory authority other than the UGC. It could look into the credentials and infrastructure of the institutions and accordingly award them university or deemed-to-be university status.”

With expansion becoming necessary to cope with the needs of a knowledge society, he said the Knowledge Commission suggested the establishment of 1,500 more universities.

“A number of State universities are big in size.

The functions and jurisdiction of such universities could be segregated to create smaller ones.

These small universities would have better quality, could be better managed and produce excellent students,” he said.

He suggested the establishment of Central/State board of education in every State and institution of community colleges with at least one in every district.

The community colleges would help in creating semi-skilled and skilled manpower by providing skill-based education, he added.

Former Vice-Chancellor of Pondicherry University A. Gnanam highlighted the need for diversification as the traditional way of teaching, learning and curriculum were restricted to a few domains and were of little help. “There is no reason why we should continue with the affiliation mode in India and evolve an alternative mode,” he said.

With only seven per cent of the population entering higher education, college principal S. Kumuda said there was a serious challenge to provide education to a much large number without diluting academic standards.

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