The State Government is going to create Higher Educational Council. Creating such a Council is necessitated by a number of reasons. The standards of higher education are not being maintained up to the level desirable. The researches conducted are not up to the mark or not oriented to the overall mental and material needs of the people. Expansion of higher education in the State demands that a proper controlling, monitoring, advising, directing and coordinating organization should be forged in the name of streamlining higher education. It is pertinent to mention here that there are 7 Universities, 96 Government Degree Colleges and 208 private BEd, Law and Degree Colleges besides two Agricultural Universities and two Central Universities in Jammu and Kashmir. In order to avail the benefits for development of education sector, two Cluster Universities have also been established under Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) Scheme. This vast world of education cannot be managed effectively by just the Department of Higher Education. There are social pressures for recognition of special rights and privileges for the backward segments, the weaker sections of people whose kids must get admission in institutes of higher and professional education. All this has necessitated the overhauling of the administrative structure. The Chairman of the contemplated Higher Education Council will be the Chief Minister and other members will be of senior rank bureaucrats, Vice Chancellors and two reputed professors. The Council will be the nodal authority for all major reforms in higher education. It will be reminded that the former President Pranab Mukherjee often lamented that not a single university of our country has been able to find place among the 200 top universities of the world. This is unacceptable and as such, the Government has been seized with the urge of improving the research potential of our researchers in various fields of knowledge.
A bill in this regard has already been tabled in the Legislative Assembly defining the objectives and goals of the contemplated Council. We welcome it because we have often in these columns stoutly brought out the case for overhauling of the administrative structure of Higher Education Department.
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