Two more education Bills passed
Aiming for better academic standards in institutes of higher learning, the Union Cabinet on Friday approved legislation that seeks to create an accreditation system for classifying institutes in accordance with their infrastructure, faculty and the level of excellence.
The bill proposes setting up of an accreditation authority which will come out with the norms.
A large number of “competent and reliable” accreditation agencies will also be created who will certify individual institutes following the norms set by the accreditation authority.
“Even the Central and state government-run universities have to go for the accreditation,” Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said.
At the moment, accreditation is voluntary. The new bill proposes to make it mandatory.
The bill seeks to establish an independent regulatory body, which would register, monitor and audit accreditation agencies.
Sibal said there wound not be any government intervention as the regulator would be an independent statutory panel of experts.
In addition, the Union Cabinet approved legislation for establishing educational tribunals at the state and Central level for fast track and speedy resolution of educational issues.
Setting up the tribunals comes from the national policy on education of 1986 that calls for settling disputes in higher education in a timely and orderly manner for a meaningful growth of the sector.
While the state-level tribunals would adjudicate on matters related to teachers, employees, students and institutions, the national tribunal would look into regulatory matters as well as issues concerning institutes in two different states.
The nine-member national tribunal would also have some appellate powers, Sibal added.
