[Assam] Why then the NKC? (Editorial,The Sentinel,27.07.2007)

[Buljit Buragohain]

        Why then the NKC?
  
When the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was constituted with Sam Pitroda as chairman and a select class of intellectuals with impeccable integrity and exemplary track record in their respective fields to support him, it is not that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not aware of the independent mindset that the commission would have. Described as a commission for the making of a knowledge society in a country that cannot now rescind the course of economic reforms and other liberal agendas, the NKC’s duty, right from day one, would essentially be to advise the government on what ought not to be done so as to avoid retrogression in the field of knowledge management. For, in the NKC’s genesis was a drive towards progression. Hence a commission by that name. However, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh — infamous for the manner in which he has hijacked the cause of higher education in the country by imposing on it a bizarre and retrogressive OBC quota
 regime — would just not accept the fact that an enlightened body as the NKC was not supposed to kowtow to every government decision. That is not an NKC function. If so, why the NKC — the hype? Just to humiliate a group of independent intellectuals? 
Readers would do well to recall our commentary in this column when a majority of the NKC members — with a 6-2 verdict — opposed the 27 per cent OBC quota as proposed by the HRD Ministry. Two of the NKC members even resigned in protest against the 27 per cent quota formula. At that time we had given an indication that a commission like the NKC could well be hijacked by the government, especially the HRD ministry, or simply be rubbished by it. That the NKC still has the ability to assert itself, prevents its hijacking by the government. The other option for the government is to simply rubbish the proposals of the commission. And that has happened now. In January, the NKC had proposed an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE) in order to do away with the current regulatory system where, as it said, ‘‘barriers to entry are too high, system of authorizing entry is cumbersome, there is a multiplicity of regulatory agencies where mandates are both confusing
 and overlapping — the system, as a whole, is over-regulated but under-governed.’’ Take the HRD Ministry’s reaction to the proposal now. Six months down the line, the Ministry has reportedly rubbished it all and instead come up with its own stereotypical measure — that of allowing the multiplicity of regulatory bodies in higher education to exist as they are but with a ‘‘National Commission on Higher Education’’ to act as an overarching organization to ‘‘coordinate’’ the higher education regulatory bodies. Yet another commission! 
The proposed National Commission on Higher Education — obviously the brainchild of a bureaucracy-dictated HRD Ministry where the very Minister’s is a story of glaring aberrations and retrogressive measures — runs counter to the higher education paradigm as mooted by the NKC. It is a way of telling the NKC members that they better not tread the ‘education’ trajectory — politically motivated — as followed by the HRD Ministry. It is a way of telling the NKC that it is just another routine commission. Does this government have any right to talk of a knowledge society then?
       
  (Editorial,The Sentinel,27.07.2007)



       
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