[MTC Global] UGC has failed, scrap it, says HRD committee Akshaya Mukul, New Delhi:

TIMES OF INDIA, Ahmedabad. 1/4/2015
UGC has failed, scrap it, says HRD committee, Akshaya Mukul, New Delhi:

One of the first committees set up by HRD minister Smriti Z Irani to review the working of the University Grants Commission (UGC) has said the regulator has not only “failed to fulfill its mandate but also has not been able to deal with emerging diverse complexities“ and should be replaced by a National Higher Education Authority.
Headed by former UGC chairperson Hari Gautam, the committee has said any “reshaping or restructuring“ of UGC will be a “futile“ exercise, as will be amending the UGC Act.Therefore, it has recom mended the setting up of a new authority through an act of Parliament and prepared a draft bill. Till such time a body is set up, the panel says, the HRD ministry can bring about changes in UGC through an executive order.

Ministry sources said the recommendations were “far-reaching“ and “will be looked into seriously“.Among the committee's other suggestions are a national research aptitude test for admission to PhD and doing away with the 10 year criterion for professors to become vice-chancellors. It has also emphasized teaching of yoga and transcendental meditation.

The two-volume report submitted to the ministry says UGC is “plagued in the main by reductionism in its functioning“. “It (UGC) has side-stepped its function of being a sentinel of excellence in education and embraced the relatively easier function of funding education.“ Headed by former UGC chairperson Hari Gautam, the committee says the UGC staff is unhappy as only “few find favour and are delegated with powers to perform in important areas while many of them are left out with hardly much to contribute... It is said that they are pushed around through an element of fear and threat.The overall impression is that there is a man-made crisis which seems to be cause of unhealthy ambience and poor performance of UGC.“

Coming down heavily on the functioning of the top levels, the committee says the UGC chairperson “should be advised to strictly keep a vigilant track of the various performance areas“ and “assess the contribution at all levels“. The chairperson, it adds, should spend more time in his “seat“ than go around the “country and the world on occasions that have not much relevance for the system he governs“. The committee has recommended that the chairperson's performance “be assessed once after three years and then at the end of his tenure of five years by a committee constituted by HRD“.

RIP UGC.

Prof. Bholanath Dutta
Founder & President: MTC Global
An Apex Global Advisory Body in Management Education
+91 96323 18178
www.mtcglobal.org
president@mtcglobal.org

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