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Journalism of Courage
The National Advisory Commission, headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, which meets tomorrow for its quarterly meeting, will have a new proposal to consider 8212; the establishment of a 8216;knowledge commission8217;, written by Gandhi-fave technocrat, Sam Pitroda.
The Knowledge Commission, an euphemism for the Education Department, seeks to revamp, recharge and refocus the entire education system to 8216;8216;build new knowledge resources8217;8217;. The preliminary draft will be circulated for discussion tomorrow. The proposal has the Pitroda trademark of techno-speak and socio-babble.
The reasons for the urgency of a knowledge commission is easy to see 8212; to harness and mobilise the youth; to make poor-friendly the centres of knowledge excellence like IITs and IIMs, whose training has so far been beneficial for globalisation and the urban elite only; to leverage contemporary and traditional knowledge yoga, ayurveda, town planning etc and apply it in social sector; to expedite modernisation and to create new knowledge-related opportunities among other things.
The 8216;Knowledge Pentagon8217; has five components: new university concepts, creating science and technology labs, access for public benefit, application by individual and, services by government.
It envisages reforms such as a truly autonomous University Commission with sweeping powers to expand and enroll, targeting 20 million students per year in the next five years. It seeks to promote nationalism as opposed to regionalism of university education through common exams and a course-wise credit system with nationwide transfer capabilities.
The Commission will have seven experts, including three below the age of 40, from the field of business, academics with offices and teams all over the country. The team will report directly to the PM and try and accomplish its main task in 36 months.
