Educationists favour transparency

The committee set up by the Central government is tasked with providing inputs to develop a New Education Policy (NEP) to take education at the national and state levels forward. This is the third committee of the Central government. 

The previous Kuo and Hari Gowtham committees gathered inputs to ensure that NEP helped India accelerate growth and is in sync with the ideas of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Talking to DT Next, Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI) president and VIT founder chancellor G. Viswanathan said, “if India is to see a breakthrough in education, then shortages should be removed.” 

Quoting figures, he said, “the nation has less than 50,000 medical seats in both private and government sectors whereas the nation actually needs five lakh seats to attain WHO’s doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000.” Engineering seat availability was 17 lakhs, he said.

It was suggested to the committee that teaching hospitals have to be started in each of the 640 districts if India were to vastly improve its health care system. The committee was also asked to request industrialists and entrepreneurs to start teaching hospitals. 

Stating this was necessary to meet the shortage of doctors in India which was six lakhs.  Shortage of nursing staff was 50 per cent, according to WHO. “India’s practice of government fixing fees for private and government institutions should be done away with as globally it was the institutions which fixed fees based on services provided. 

Such fees if collected with receipts would ensure transparency, largely absent in India and a reason for burgeoning corruption,” he said. Competition will ensure transparency just as a closed door approach will result in corruption. Competition will also bring down fees. 

The committee was requested to ensure that approval/ permission had a timeframe. Single window clearance is necessary to expedite startups; currently clearance is required from 20 bodies to start an educational institution, Viswanathan said. 

“Credit transfer in higher education and ensuring RTE if strictly followed would ensure education accessible for more children,” he stressed.