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A proactive beginning: Yash Pal

Deepa Kurup

Hails plan to make Standard X public examination optional

Professor Yash Pal

BANGALORE: Academic and Chairman of the review committee on the National Curriculum Framework (2005) Professor Yash Pal has opposed the move to standardise the board examination syllabus across the country. However, he welcomed the proposal to make Standard X public examination optional.

Speaking to The Hindu a day after the Human Resource Development Ministry rolled out its 100-day agenda, Professor Yash Pal said scrapping the examination would de-stress the educational system and was a significant move. “But I do not understand how we can talk of standardising syllabus and academic content across the country when we are asking boards to draw up their own content. Does the question of teaching the same syllabus to a student in Tamil Nadu and Bihar even arise?”

While it is too early to comment on the direction the government has taken, these steps are a “pro-active beginning,” says Professor Yash Pal.

The committee has proposed, in its report, the setting up of a National Commission for Higher Education and Research, which will subsume all other regulatory bodies.

On the transition from the current multiple-regulator system to this all-encompassing body, Professor Yash Pal is concerned that it will end up being a purely bureaucratic exercise. “It must involve academics and those who work actively in this field.”

Does HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s promise on educational reforms, which include opening up the sector to foreign universities, reflect the spirit of his report? “It is too early to say. But we have remained cautious — be it about profiteering educational ventures or allowing little-known universities to set up shop. Accreditation norms must be tight.”

Asked about the dissenting note submitted to the Ministry by Kaushik Basu, committee member and Professor of Economics at Cornell University, Professor Yash Pal said his views were “completely against our philosophy.”

Dr. Basu had argued for increased private investment in the higher education sector. Further, Professor Yash Pal said, the suggestion that lucrative courses such as engineering and management education be handed over to the private sector, while the government retain the arts was “diametrically opposite to our concept of a holistic university.” “Ask big universities like Cornell to do something that divisive and you will see it destruct itself.”

Professor Yash Pal also objected to Dr. Basu’s proposal that differential salaries be awarded to professors in universities. While private players were important, they should not be accredited if their motives were commercial. “We have had a terrible experience with that so far, and that must change.” The proposal to subsume 14 regulatory bodies sparked protests in several agencies, the University Grants Commission in particular. “It is only natural that they should be worried. But officials can be re-trained and assigned to other jobs.” Professor Yash Pal called the inclusion of research bodies within the ambit of higher education a significant change. This was a significant departure from the interim report the committee submitted in April.

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