Chandigarh, August 22: National Knowledge Commission (NKC) today suggested Punjab Government to introduce compulsory accreditation of Education Institutions including Institutes of Higher Education to bring uniformity, standardisation and transparency in their working.
Mr. S. Raghunathan, IAS (retd.) Advisor to National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and his team today gave a presentation to Chief Secretary Mr. R.I.Singh and Senior Civil Officers of Labour, Education, Industries, I.T., Employment Generation Department to deliberate upon recommendations of NKC. The Commission also suggested constituting a board of higher education on the pattern of CBSE to stop proliferation of various institutes of dubious character and also too lower load on State Universities.
In a brain storming session, the commission also suggested that while going ahead with bill on private universities, the recommendation of NKC be kept in mind.
Suggesting for a sustained campaign for globalization of education, the NKC team suggested state government to create a think tank consisting of Chief Minister and Chief Secretary to monitor the progress of higher education institution. It also suggested providing digital infrastructure to the institutions and constituting a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for this purpose.
The State Government had set up two Working Groups last year, viz. on Business Process Reengineering in Government and Improving Access to Language and Higher Education. These were based upon the deliberations held with a team of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) led by Sh. S. Reghunathan, Advisor. Both the groups had submitted reports to the state government and the state had constituted task force with a steering committee headed by Chief Secretary.
Today NKC also submitted its knowledge related report to the state government on higher education, Health Care, School Education.
Besides Chief Secretary Principal Secretary Labour Mr. P.Ram, Director General MGSIPA Mr. B.K.Srivastava, Financial Commissioner Cooperation Ms. Kusumjit Sidhu, Principle Secretary Mr. S.S.Channy, Secretary Co-ordination Mr. Ashok Goyal, Secretary Higher Education Mrs. Anjali Bhawra, Secretary I.T. Mr. Narinderjit Singh; Director, Public Relation Mr. Tejveer Singh; Special Secretary Irrigation Mr. A.K.Shekhar; Director General School Education Mr. Krishan Kumar, Director General Employment Generation Mr. A.S.Mahajan; Executive Director Punjab State Council of Science & Technology Mr. N.S.Tiwana were also present in the meeting.
Ms. Sukhman Randhawa, Research Associate KNC also gave a presentation.