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Education reforms
Govt wants semester system for varsities
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, March 26
The government today said it would push for transition to semester system in all the universities so also a norms-based funding pattern to set the good universities apart from the not-so-good ones and create incentives for institutional improvement.

The move came after 200 Vice-Chancellors from the Central and state universities across India endorsed the need for a semester system to enable the mobility of students across institutions and credit transfers. The V-Cs recognised the need to introduce a Common Entrance Examination for entry to higher educational institutions, with the core curriculum for science already adopted and another for commerce and humanities on the way.

These endorsements came at the end of a two-day brainstorming session on the way forward for higher education reforms, organised by the UGC here. Breaking away from regional considerations, all Vice-Chancellors agreed on another path-breaking move to change the Constitution of State University Acts to reduce the role of elected representatives in the senates and the syndicates.

Almost all of them agreed that no higher educational reform could work unless the constitution of the executive council of state universities was altered to make room for academics by ridding political appointees. The problem persists in several universities - MS Baroda University, Panjab University being some. Maharashtra recently changed its state university act to reduce the role of senate and syndicate and the results are showing.

“Please discuss these issues with the state governments and return your feedbacks in four weeks to allow us to proceed,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal today told the V-Cs. He plans to put all their recommendations - especially the ones on semester system, norms based grants, common entrance exam - in the agenda of the meeting with state education ministers followed by a meeting of the CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education), the highest decision making body on education in India.

Meanwhile, the HRD Ministry made it clear that a model norm for standards of affiliation needs to be developed for universities. “Currently there is no such norm. We don’t know which university is eligible to act as an affiliating institution. We need standards. Also, between the university and an affiliated college, we need a third entity called an autonomous institution which has proven its mettle beyond being an affiliate. Such institutions need more encouragement so that other affiliates also feet incentivised to graduate,” Sibal said, admitting that the Indian university system was the most shackled in the world and needed to be set free.

He called upon the institutes to face three-yearly compulsory academic audits from independent experts to test their quality, as recommended by the V-Cs today.