Business OpportunitiesReform Bills on MHRD agenda
To be tabled in Winter, Budget sessions of Parliament.
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The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) plans to complete its legislative agenda by introducing major reform Bills — including the ones on the Foreign Education Bill, Education Malpractices and the setting up of an overarching body to govern higher education — in the coming Winter and Budget sessions of Parliament.
“The regulatory body and all the legislative agenda will be over by the next Budget session,” HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said while addressing the India Economic Summit here today.
As part of the legislative agenda, the ministry has already enacted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, besides evolving a consensus for establishment of an All India Madarsa Board. The ministry’s other legislative initiatives pertain to setting up an autonomous overarching authority for higher education and research, based on the recommendations of the Yash Pal Committee and National Knowledge Commission, and a law to prevent, prohibit and punish educational malpractices.
MHRD is also mulling a law for mandatory assessment and accreditation in higher education through an independent regulator and a law to regulate entry and operation of foreign education providers.
On continuing with reservations for students and teachers in Indian education institutes, Sibal said “no reservation is unacceptable to the government of India and we will focus on the three pillars of excellence, inclusions and expansion for education. However, the education system needs to reform from within and will collaborate with foreign education providers to build world-class universities.”
The ministry is also in talks with the Unique Identification Authority of India to track students going to primary schools and those going to secondary schools by giving them unique ID cards, besides doing geospatial mapping of universities.