V-C selection: registry may enhance transparency

Narendra Jadhav,member of Planning Commission and the task force set up to implement the recommendations of Yash Pal Committee,elaborated on the move on Wednesday. He said,“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had appointed a task force to study the recommendation of Yash Pal Committee report on higher education that proposed to set up National Commission on Higher Education and Research (NCHER),a single regulatory body for higher education.”

He said,as per the draft bill,it has been decided to create a database of over 2,000 scholars in education,who will be eligible to hold the vice chancellor post. “The registry will be called collegium of scholars and universities or state governments will have to request the NCHER to suggest names of the candidates for state or deemed universities. The advantage is that they will have wider choices,” he said.

The candidates registered can also be vice chancellors of any university in India. “They can be demanded by central,state or even IITs to run their education set-ups,” he said.

Jadhav also said that the task force had innumerable brainstorming sessions over the recommendations of the Yash Pal Committee and had recently come up with the provisional draft. “With the formation of NCHER,the role of the present regulatory bodies like UGC,AICTE and councils of professional courses will be reduced as they will be subsumed under NCHER,” he said.

He said the provisional draft has been put on the website of Ministry of Human Resource Development and suggestions have been invited.

“We had sessions in Bangalore,Thiruvanathapuram,Chennai and Bhopal. In Pune,we talked to the vice chancellors of state and deemed universities of Maharashtra and Goa and have deliberations on the draft,” said Jadhav.

Other members of the task force Madhavan Menon,Uma Shankar,Govardhan Mehta and Apurva Nand were also present.