Yashpal Committee report on Higher Education in India

Yash Pal graduated with a degree in physics from Punjab University in 1949 and was awarded a PhD degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. During a long academic and research career he served as a visiting professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, the California Institute of Technology and the Danish Space Research Institute. Yash Pal has held several prominent positions during his career which includes Chief Consultant, Planning Commission (1983-84), Secretary, Department of Science & Technology (1984-86) and Chairman, University Grants Commission (1986-91).

Yesterday, Yashpal Committee report on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (embedded below) was accepted by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal.  It is an interesting document and a well times one.  According to the foreword, this document has full backing of PM Dr. Singh and the HR Minister Sibal.

A lot of years back, I had once watched in interview with Prof. Yashpal.  He is a scientist with interests in arts.  So, the interviewer asked him about his varied interests to which he replied that at the end of his life he did not want to look back and see only one road on which he had walked.  He wanted to wander on the sideways and smell the beautiful flowers and watch the streams also that were away from the main road.  That one answer of his has impacted me a lot over my years of growing up.

I think this report includes that thinking.  The report is very wide ranging – from structure of the Indian education to the examination system to the inequities to how a good and high level University should be structured.  He has taken his learnings from MIT and Caltech to fashion the next generation of the Indian Universities.  There is also an admittance on the peripheral education structure of donation colleges that proliferate the Indian landscape.  There is also the acceptance of the uselessness of the traditional Undergraduation degree courses – which has taken a long time coming.  There is also the push to a more robust and meaningful vocational strata of education.

If this report is accepted as Kapil Sibal has indicated, then this may be the best legacy that he and Dr. Singh can leave behind for the coming generations.  Please do share your thoughts on what you think are the 5 most important issues in Indian education and how they can be rectified?

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