Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal is likely to push for further reform in higher education in the forthcoming Budget Session by hoping to evolve a consensus on almost a dozen bills still pending before Parliament.
The UPA government’s ambitious plan for reform higher education in the country has been delayed with important bills stuck at various stages in the Parliament. Over the past few months, Mr Sibal is understood to have engaged in several rounds of consultation with MPs to ensure that these bills are passed in the Budget Session of Parliament, which begins on Monday.
Several important bills, like the Educational Tribunals Bill, Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, the Education Malpractices Bill, the Accreditation Bill, the high profile National Academic Depository (Amendment) Bill, 2011, and National Council for Higher Education and Research 2011 are still pending before the Parliament.
Despite a serious attempt, the Union human resource development ministry was unable to get even a single bill passed during the last Winter Session of the Parliament, putting additional pressure on Mr Sibal for pushing the UPA’s education reform agenda.
These important legislation have been pending, in some cases for over two years, despite the fact that Mr Sibal had worked overtime to placate Congress MPs and Opposition members. Sources pointed out that Mr Sibal has held several rounds of meetings with MPs, cutting across party lines, to ensure that their queries regarding various pending bills were resolved properly.
Several of these bills have come under repeated attacks from the Opposition and ruling party members ever since Mr Sibal initiated the reform process. It is understood that currently there are about 12 bills at various stages of legislative and consultation process in the Parliament and the delay in their clearance has pushed the educational reform agenda back by several years.
Some of these bills, like the NCHER Bill, which aims at creating an overarching body for higher education regulation in the country, have been facing multi-pronged opposition. The NCHER Bill has faced stiff opposition from Union health ministry, forcing the ministry to drop Health education from its ambit. The bill is currently also facing stiff resistance from the Bar Council of India, the legal education regulator in the country.