The new HRD minister  Prakash Javadekar

 is the “right person in the right place.” He is the one who has the personality combined with diligence and pragmatism, he will be successful in extricating the HRD ministry from the controversies and deficiencies. however has to cope with numerous challenges to cleanse Indian education. the recently released national policy on education report 2016 (NPER) has convincingly argued that Indian education system is in a state of “disarray”. the most important issue is that of the degree trading deemed universities. the Tandon committee found “undesirable management architecture” in most of the deemed universities, a reference to their being family, rather than professionally, managed. the committee also indicted the 44 varsities for “thoughtless introduction” of new study programmes beyond the mandate of the original terms of grant of deemed university status. it also concluded that none of them were engaged in any meaningful research activity. when the government realised that the public mood was against indiscriminately granting deemed university status (later university status) to all sorts of private teaching shops owned by unscrupulous persons, mainly politicians. with the floodgates having been opened by Arjun Singh and reports of the poor quality and unemployability of Indian university graduates causing alarm in industry and media, the government was forced to a freeze sanctioning new deemed universities, and placed existing ones under the scanner of the Tandon committee. it is reported that at the time of the freeze order, 225 proposals for deemed universities were under the consideration of the commission, of which 37 were from Tamil Nadu, 30 from Uttar Pradesh, 24 from Maharashtra, and 17 from Karnataka. moreover, the HRD ministry constituted its own committee under the chairmanship of prof. p.n.Tandon, to investigate existing deemed universities. the Tandon committee’s recommended for derecognition 44 deemed universities was accepted by the HRD ministry. as usual the managements of these institutions approached the judiciary. the case is pending.in this context, one aspect has to be made clear. UGC action to grant deemed university status is a clear case of encroachment of state autonomy. moreover, UGC is ill-equipped to monitor and control the functioning of the deemed universities. therefore, the granting of deemed university status should be stopped forthwith. the existing deemed universities may be brought under the ambit of monitoring by central/state government.

Times of India, HRD Mantri’s real job is not fire-fighting, it’s education,  July 10, 2016,