No need for govt nominees on pvt institution boards, says Irani

Self-financing private educational institutions in the country need no longer have any government nominees on their board of management, Union Minister for Human Resources Development Smriti Irani has said.

“I have given directions to the University Grants Commission (UGC) that we do not want a government nominee on the boards of private institutions not funded by the government,” said Irani.

She was speaking at a national conference organised by Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI) here on Tuesday.

If the institution has an engagement with a regulator like the UGC, the UGC nominee will be elected in a transparent manner. “The nominee should not be one who is selected based on the whims and fancies of any individual. A well-structured search-cum-selection process should be put in place to ensure transparency,” she said.

Giving relief to institutes of technical education, which have to run for approvals every year to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Irani said the five-year NAAC accreditation for such institutes would be equated to the AICTE approvals for five years. “This is a move to end the ‘licence raj’ (of the AICTE),” she said.

Further, affiliated colleges, which have been receiving the highest NAAC grade for the past 10 years, will also get autonomy, provided they get an NoC from the affiliated state university. Karnataka’s Higher Education Minister T B Jayachandra has also supported the move.

In line with the Central government’s plan of skilling India, the AICTE will also allow universities to double up their infrastructure not only for vocational education but also for conducting skill programmes.

The National Achievement Survey, which is usually conducted once in three years, will be done in individual states every year so that interventions can be made immediately based on the data collected from such surveys, Irani said.

She rued the fact that students were not aware of a number of learning parameters and benchmarks on which they were being judged. Therefore, the National Council of Educational Research and Training will make subject-wise benchmarks for classes 1 to 8 available to schools.Government school principals will also be selected for academic and administrative leadership workshops.