Budget Session:Govt to push for passage of 2 crucial edu bills

The HRD Ministry would seek to push through during the second half of the Budget Session two crucial bills to help students maintain their certificates in digital format and empower prestigious IIMs to award degrees in place of diplomas.
In a fresh bid, the Smriti Irani-led Ministry would introduce the National Academic Depository Bill, 2011, which had lapsed with the last Lok Sabha.
Its passage would be a boon for students, cutting their woes to run around in case of loss of certificates or attestation, said officials in the Ministry.
The certificates will be readily available on a proposed depository that can be directly accessed by them, educational institutes as also by the government agencies for the purpose of recruitment.

The government shall appoint a depository as the National Academic Depository to establish and maintain the national database.
The Indian Institute of Management Bill, 2015 empowering the 13 premier B-Schools to award degrees in place of diplomas to its students at the end of the two-year MBA programme would also be taken up for passage, the officials said.

The legislation also seeks to set up a coordinating body of IIMs, much on the lines of the IIT Council in decision making process, but allowing enough flexibilities to the IIMs to chart their own course.
Significantly, the bill help the IIMs gain global recognition and attract more foreign students.

The Ministry is placing high hopes on the passage of these crucial legislations backed by confidence that three legislations on education was passed during the first year of the Narendra Modi Government as opposed to a very few of them passed during the previous UPA regime.
The government also intends to introduce a bill to bring about an effective regulation in education offered through distance mode, the officials said.
The Distance Education Council of India Bill has been drafted in keeping with the recommendations of the Madhava Menon Committee which had envisaged establishment, through an act of Parliament, of a regulatory authority equipped with necessary powers and resources to determine and regulate the standards of higher education including technical education through open/distance learning.