JOIN USThe Karnataka Knowledge Commission (KKC) has made a slew of recommendations in its second phase with focus on six core areas, namely teacher development, higher education policy, public health, skill development, community knowledge and practices, and setting up a task force on Karnataka-Geographic Information System (K-GIS).
Prof M K Sridhar, Member-Secretary and Executive Director of the KKC, told reporters that the Commission, comprising 13 members, three ex-officio members and six special invitees, embarked upon the second phase after the government extended its tenure for 18 months in January this year.
Among the six core areas, the first five have been rated as a mission group, while the task force will evolve recommendations and strategies for effective implementation of the programmes in future.
Some of the key recommendations submitted to the Karnataka government for approval were: Setting up a strong pre-service teacher education institutions, strengthening the academic quality of teachers, creating an academic cadre of professionally qualified people to engage with teacher education and recognising teaching as a valuable profession.
The commission has also recommended for Karnataka Student Scholarship and Loan Authority to support students from economically weaker background to pursue higher education. In the field of public health, it has backed the reliable medicine supply system and developing urban primary health policy with focus on multi-sectoral services. It has also suggested an integrative Ayush and Public Health Mission to develop a plural public health system.
In the category of community knowledge and practices, the Commission has suggested invoking time-tested wisdom and initiate research into indigenous and traditional texts in manuscripts form. It has advised the government to set up farm extension services to provide information pertaining to agriculture-related practices.
It has also advocated an online diploma or certificate courses on indigenous community knowledge, knowledge engineering systems, manuscript processing, new script interfaces, training programmes for old Kannada, Tulu or Tigalari, Nandinagari etc, and introduce vocational and online courses on epistemological and cognitive structures for all streams.
The Commission has recommended developing a district-wise Knowledge Index to track indicators, measuring knowledge creation, dissemination and application, which are key pillars of a knowledge society. It will enable creation of a knowledge register or repository for every district, said Sridhar.