Thursday 20 October 2011

Sibal briefs MPs about pending HRD Bills

NEW DELHI: HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday met a group of MPs from various political parties to brief them about the upcoming legislations of his ministry.

The meeting, HRD officials said, was held to dispel doubts the MPs had about some of these legislations, most of which pertain to higher education. In the meeting, the MPs also expressed concern about vacancies of teachers and the standard of education in schools which the minister said were being looked into.

The Bills that were discussed include the Foreign Universities Regulatory Bill, the Education Malpractices Bill, the National Commission of Higher Education and Research Bill and the Accreditation Bill. Among the MPs who were present were Shashi Tharoor, Supriya Sule, B L Punia, Sanjay Singh, Aaron Rasheed and Nirmal Khatri. The Bill for the National Commission for Higher Education and Research, which has been envisaged as an overarching body, is all set to be sent to the Union cabinet.

"There have been many instances where private universities and other educational institutions have lobbied with MPs against some of these legislations. This meant that for the legislations to be passed the misgivings the MPs have expressed in the past had to be dealt with. That is why this meeting was scheduled," said an HRD ministry official.

Speaking to TOI, Rasheed said: "The minister said that the idea for bringing these Bills is to bring the standard of higher education in India to the level of foreign universities and to also ensure that the 'foreign universities' who are in India should be accountable to the students and not indulge in misleading advertisements. The Bills will ensure that universities fill up faculty vacancies on time and there are set standards of education that they meet. We urged the government to take strict measures to curb such malpractices in higher education."

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