AIU forms panel on National Education Policy

The Association of Indian Universities is expected to provide suggestions on implementing the National Education Policy 2020.

It has constituted a committee to examine, and recommend changes, modifications and suggestions on NEP. The committee chairman will meet Vice-Chancellors, who have been urged to send their comments on the draft policy. AIU has constituted another committee to study issues related to ranking, rating and accreditation by NAAC, NIRF and NBA.

Col. G. Thiruvasagam, who recently took over as president of the AIU, said universities faced practical difficulties in implementing the NEP.

“A Vice-Chancellor cannot take decisions unilaterally. The statutory bodies are going to come back with many issues. The Board of Studies, the Syndicate and the State governments must be involved. We have to prepare the universities as the student is the end user. For this, we need clear cut notification, direction and planning. Instead, we get only circulars from UGC. We have our own practical difficulties,” he said. Though the NEP was launched a year ago, not much has happened.

The association has 844 universities, including State and deemed universities, institutions of national importance and 27 international institutions as associate members.

The government announced recently that public universities were exempted from paying fee to file for patent. Though the government had given an assurance that funding for private and government institutions would be on a par, there was no indication of that from DST, UGC or AICTE, Col. Thiruvasagam pointed out.

The concept of multidisciplinary university was welcome but could not be carried forward because of funding constraints.

Till date, the choice-based credit system had not taken off in many parts of the country and academic bank of credit was just an extension of CBCS, he said.

“The concept will take another five years to materialise as universities and colleges need to develop the required infrastructure such as classrooms and laboratories,” he said.

The committees were constituted after a meeting of the Governing Council earlier this month. The committees were necessitated as the draft policy did not incorporate the views of educators sent individually earlier.

The national assessment agencies should continue with the ranking/grading provided previously as in the last 18 months institutions had been shut. The NIRF should rank institutions based on their discipline, their age and sector, instead of clubbing them.

The committee on implementation of NEP, headed by S.P. Thyagarajan, former V-C of University of Madras, would submit its report within three months, Col. Thiruvasagam added.