Kapil Sibal blames Opposition for holding up on education reform bills
Kapil Sibal said his sense of urgency stemmed from the fact that India had just about 10-12 years to reform its education system.
Union Human Resource Development ministerKapil Sibalhas accused theOppositionof lacking political will to put the nation before politics.
Speaking at the Mail Today Education Conclave 2012, theHRD ministersaid, "People talk of paralysis in governance.
Let us find out where the paralysis is," referring to the manner in which the Bill for the mandatory accreditation of higher education institutions was scuttled by a BJP member (Ananth Kumar) in the Rajya Sabha last week.
An angry Sibal attacked the Opposition saying there is a class of people which does not understand the challenge and opportunity that exist in the education sector.
Earlier, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group Aroon Purie welcomed the HRD minister and referred to his passion to "transform the education system in the country".
He spoke of the enormous agenda that the minister was dealing with in the education sector even while simultaneously heading the communications and information technology ministry.
Sibal said his sense of urgency stemmed from the fact that India had just about 10 to 12 years window to reform its education system, failing which the country would be "destined to mediocrity".
He recounted how the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill took just one year to be ready but got clearance from the all-party standing committee of Parliament in two-and-a-half years.
And when the Bill was brought before Parliament, a BJP member dismissed it as being unconstitutional. "(First) If I can draft the Bill in my first year as HRD minister, why did the standing committee take so much time to deal with it," he asked.
He said he met a cross-section of Opposition and UPA members before bringing the Bill to Parliament and was assured that they would fully support the proposal.
Yet when push came to shove, it was simply shot down. "Is it the paralysis of the state (government) or is the paralysis somewhere else?" he said referring to the Opposition.
Sibal's anguish at the state of affairs springs from the fact that several of his important Bills and amendments relating to reforms in the education sector remain stuck in Parliament.
The accreditation Bill, for example, seeks to ensure a certain level of quality in private and public educational institutions through a mandatory accreditation process.
Other Bills such as the National Depository Bill will create an online database of all legitimate degree holders and thus prevent bogus degrees from being circulated.
The minister is also reported to be unhappy over the ill-informed opposition to the Foreign Education Institution Bill. So stiff is the resistance from certain sections of the Opposition that the ministry has decided to put this Bill on the back burner in this session.
"I don't see why there is opposition to foreign investment (in education)... they will teach our students, not American students."
His frustration has grown since he has made an effort to reach out to the Opposition and accommodate their views in the legislation. Yet, the Bills have remained stuck in Parliament.