PM has directed MHRD officials to come up with a 100-day plan for implementation of reforms.
New Delhi: With the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regaining a thumping majority to govern the country for another five years, the education sector is set to witness the implementation of pending proposals including the New Education Policy (NEP) and increase in education expenditure.
Although in its first term, the Modi government seemed to have tried hard to reform India’s education sector through a New Education Policy, made efforts to improve the rankings of educational institutions, establish 20 world-class universities across the country, skill youths for a better future, reform regulatory bodies and take many other initiatives, it failed to implement some of its proposals.
For example, implementation of the NEP and promise to increase the education expenditure to 6% of the country’s total GDP are two major proposals which are still to materialise.
However, The Sunday Guardian has learnt that including an early implementation of the NEP, the second term of the Modi government is set to initiate many reforms in education policy. As per sources, the Prime Minister has directed officials of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to come up with a 100-day action plan for the early implementation of proposed policy in the education sector.
The Sunday Guardian has also learnt that the Central government is going to move quickly to implement the NEP. The NEP has been a politically sensitive issue and it is for this reason that it has been hanging in balance for many years. The existing education policy is two-decade old as it was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992.
The implementation of the NEP, and the long-delayed plan to set up a single regulator for higher education which was called off last year due to massive protests, is also set to be implemented. During its last tenure, the Modi-led Central government had formed a committee headed by T.S.R. Subramanian. The committee had submitted its report in May 2016, but according to sources, the recommendations were not in line with the then HRD minister Smriti Irani and the proposal failed to see the light of day. Later, in June 2017, a new committee headed by ISRO chief Dr K. Kasturirangan was formed. The Kasturirangan committee had already submitted its final NEP draft in June 2018.
Besides implementation of the NEP, the draft bill for a single regulator for higher education that has been prepared in consultation with the Niti Aayog is likely to be put in public domain soon for the opinion of experts.
The Modi government is also preparing to boost expenditure on education. However, the real picture on this will emerge only after the full budget is presented in July. According to sources, the Centre is also set to give the green light for filling up of teaching posts that are vacant in the Centrally-funded universities and colleges.
In the last five years, the Centre has started seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), six new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and two new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs).
The last one year has been more productive in terms of policy implementation and initiatives taken by the Modi government. The government fulfilled its promise of providing more autonomy to higher education institutes by approving a new law to give IIMs unprecedented levels of academic and administrative freedom. In addition, a new regulation passed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) has granted different grades of autonomy to all institutions of higher learning based on their performance. The Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) has been set up for lending money to institutions to promote world-class infrastructure development.