Why then the NKC?
When the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was constituted with Sam Pitroda
as chairman and a select class of intellectuals with impeccable integrity and
exemplary track record in their respective fields to support him, it is not
that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not aware of the independent mindset
that the commission would have. Described as a commission for the making of a
knowledge society in a country that cannot now rescind the course of economic
reforms and other liberal agendas, the NKCs duty, right from day one, would
essentially be to advise the government on what ought not to be done so as to
avoid retrogression in the field of knowledge management. For, in the NKCs
genesis was a drive towards progression. Hence a commission by that name.
However, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh infamous for
the manner in which he has hijacked the cause of higher education in the
country by imposing on it a bizarre and retrogressive OBC quota
regime would just not accept the fact that an enlightened body as the NKC
was not supposed to kowtow to every government decision. That is not an NKC
function. If so, why the NKC the hype? Just to humiliate a group of
independent intellectuals?
Readers would do well to recall our commentary in this column when a majority
of the NKC members with a 6-2 verdict opposed the 27 per cent OBC quota as
proposed by the HRD Ministry. Two of the NKC members even resigned in protest
against the 27 per cent quota formula. At that time we had given an indication
that a commission like the NKC could well be hijacked by the government,
especially the HRD ministry, or simply be rubbished by it. That the NKC still
has the ability to assert itself, prevents its hijacking by the government. The
other option for the government is to simply rubbish the proposals of the
commission. And that has happened now. In January, the NKC had proposed an
Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE) in order to do
away with the current regulatory system where, as it said, barriers to entry
are too high, system of authorizing entry is cumbersome, there is a
multiplicity of regulatory agencies where mandates are both confusing
and overlapping the system, as a whole, is over-regulated but
under-governed. Take the HRD Ministrys reaction to the proposal now. Six
months down the line, the Ministry has reportedly rubbished it all and instead
come up with its own stereotypical measure that of allowing the multiplicity
of regulatory bodies in higher education to exist as they are but with a
National Commission on Higher Education to act as an overarching
organization to coordinate the higher education regulatory bodies. Yet
another commission!
The proposed National Commission on Higher Education obviously the brainchild
of a bureaucracy-dictated HRD Ministry where the very Ministers is a story of
glaring aberrations and retrogressive measures runs counter to the higher
education paradigm as mooted by the NKC. It is a way of telling the NKC members
that they better not tread the education trajectory politically motivated
as followed by the HRD Ministry. It is a way of telling the NKC that it is just
another routine commission. Does this government have any right to talk of a
knowledge society then?
(Editorial,The Sentinel,27.07.2007)
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