New Delhi: In its tenure, the Modi government has made significant promises for the education sector, from assuring to improve the quality of education, easing of regulatory mechanisms to bettering the quality of engineering graduates in the country.
The changes were to come through the legislative route with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) drafting a number of bills to be introduced in Parliament.
But with barely two weeks left for the government’s official tenure and the last Parliament session coming to an end Wednesday, many of the plans are set to just fizzle out.
ThePrint takes a look at some of the key bills the HRD ministry had drafted but that never saw the light of day.
The Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) bill
The bill was an attempt to replace the University Grants Commission (UGC) with a body that was to be entrusted with maintaining the quality of education. The primary job of the commission was supposed to be the enhancement of quality of education, help universities design syllabi, conduct research among others.
Rather than the distribution of funds that the UGC is majorly involved in, the government wanted the new commission to be primarily involved in academics.
Status: The bill was okayed by the Cabinet but was not introduced in Parliament.
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Private Universities Bill
The private universities bill, as reported earlier by ThePrint, was aimed at bringing all private universities under the ambit of reservation, both caste-based and economic category reservation introduced recently by the government.
As per the bill, all institutions would have to provide 27 per cent, 15 per cent and 7.5 per cent reservation for OBCs, SCs and STs respectively in addition to the 10 per cent reservation for the ‘poor’ among upper castes.
Status: The bill was sent to be vetted by the law ministry but it has not moved beyond that.
Teacher’s Reservation Bill
Following the order of the Allahabad High Court on the hiring of faculty department-wise, the UGC had sent a circular to all universities asking them to follow the order. As this would result in undermining reservation in educational institutions, the ministry had planned to bring in this bill.
Status: The bill hasn’t made it to Parliament.
Professional Engineers Bill
The government had planned this bill to bring engineers under the ambit of practising professionals such as doctors and lawyers. According to a senior official in the HRD ministry, the bill aimed at making engineers licensed professionals like doctors and lawyers.
“The idea is to fix accountability of professionals by bringing a bill,” said an official aware of the developments. “Suppose there is a civil engineer who is in charge of construction of a bridge or a crucial project or a mechanical engineer who has designed a crucial machine. If they are licensed professionals, accountability can be fixed.”
Status: The bill is still at the drafting stage.
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The first choice for HRD minister broke my heart. Although a lateral shift followed – a rare instance of lack of ability being accounted for – the ministry that is expected to contribute most to encashing the demographic dividend check – it has seen a succession of Secretaries as well – not been a bright spot. It is also singled for special attention to push the ideological agenda. 2. As election season approaches, journalists will fan out to different parts of the country, to get a sense of the popular mood, file their reports. What would be equally valuable is for the more thoughtful ones – armchair specialist like me … – to work on what may be considered the Citizens’ drafting of the Report Card, sector by sector, ministrywise, to get an honest appraisal of what has been achieved in the last five years.
As long as Mr Modi is enslaved by the typical Gujarati “Apdo-Manus” mentality, all promises reforms in any field will remain only that — promises.