By Anjan Mitra
New Delhi,
Oct. 29
The
All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is understood
to have set up a committee to devise strategies to implement
suggestions made by the Swaminathan Committee on mobilisation
of additional resources for technical education in the country.
This
11-member sub-committee of the Executive Committee of the
AICTE is expected to submit a report by the end of the year
which will then be studied by the Council before being forwarded
to the Human Resource Development Ministry.
Dr. Swaminathan panel
had been set up in 1992 by HRD Minister Arjun Singh in his
capacity as the chairman of the AICTE. The report of committee
was submitted by the Council to the Ministry sometime in June
this year. However, since then the follow-up has not been
as fast as expected because some of the recommendations made
by this high power panel can revolutionise resource mobillisation
process, especially when institutes of higher education in
the country are facing severe funds crunch.
Informed sources in the
Council, quoting Ministry officials, said that these things
take time as one has to cut through red tape. The members
on the strategy implementation panel are Kerala's Education
Secretary Sudha Pillai, AICTE's western region council chairman
D.Y. Patil, and Dr. H.C Khare. The experts who are
to assist these three are Dr. J.D. Agarwal, IIT-Delhi's A.L.
Agarwal, BITS Pilani director S. Venkateswaran, Department
of Science and Technology's R. Thiagarajan and Dr. J.P. Shrivastava.
This
panel is to co-ordinate between the Government, financial
houses and technical institutions to gauge how and where to
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implement
the suggestions made by the Swaminathan panel.
The sources said setting
up of this committee was felt important because quite a few
recommendations on resource mobilisation have to be studied
thoroughly and decisions taken at the highest level in the
Government for their implementation. In this regard setting
up of an Educational Development Bank of India (EDBI) on the
lines of housing development and financial corporation has
been cited as example.
It
has been suggested the Government may set up an EDBI with
capital base of Rs. 300 crore with participation by the Central
and State Governments, financial institutions and international
organisation for soft loans for establishment of institutions
and also to assist students to meet their fee and living requirements.
The
sources, basing their observations on the thinking in Government
circles, remarked that though laudable is the suggestion on
the EDBI, it requires active participation from State Government,
a seemingly gray area, and involves clearance from the top
too.
Another
suggestion on resource mobilisation in the technical education
sector is the adoption of a technical institute by a business
house. This again, the sources pointed out, is questionable
since any business group willing to adopt an institute may
as well open a new one.
On
the other hand, other recommendations, if implemented, can
open up new vistas for cash starved technical institutes where
quality is suffering
In
this regard the Swaminathan panel has come up with some innovative
approach. "The plan allocation for technical education
sector, both Central and State, should be based and related
to the plan outlays in the industrial and service sectors,"
the panel had noted. " As a matter of policy, plan allocation
for sectors which require significant technical manpower support
(such as industry, power, railways, transport, communications,
Housing, etc.) small have an appropriate share earmarked for
technical manpower development and this shall be made available
to HRD Ministry to be used exclusively for the development
of technical manpower."
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