Supreme Court

In what might sound a very strongly worded reprimand coming from the Supreme Court, the National Council of Teachers Education (NCTE) was declared inconsequential, with ‘no right to exist’ as the council failed in its duties to regulate private colleges imparting teacher training courses.

In an investigation carried out by the country’s main educational authority, as many as 29 Pakistani lawmakers were identified for submission of fake degrees with their nomination papers during the elections of 2008.

Noting a non-serious attitude towards anti-ragging regulations in most of the country’s regulatory councils in higher education, the Supreme Court appointed Raghavan Committee minced no words at a meeting to indicate the non-acceptance of this lackadaisical attitude.

The Right to Education Act that provides free and compulsory education to all the children in the age group of 6 to 14 years is all set to be implemented from April 1. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will address the nation on Thursday to make an announcement to this effect and through light on various aspects of law.

The Supreme Court on March 9 asked explanation from the Delhi Government for remaining inactive in education sector for years and hence violating children’s fundamental right to education. Many government schools in Delhi do not have adequate teaching staff and till date no action had been taken by the Delhi government.

That education system in the country is afflicted with myriad ailments is known to everybody. Crass commercialization of education brought in its wake many undesirable elements in the system. The market axiom: ‘the one, who pays the piper, calls the tune’ best sums up the prevailing education scene. That people with resources would exploit the situation taking advantage of the new changed atmosphere was a foregone conclusion. Yet the government with no means to meet the educational requirement of the country had taken a calculated risk by going for the privatisation of education. 

The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of the nearly 2 lakh students of 44 deemed universities whose de-recognition was sought by the Central Government a week back.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has withdrawn the ‘deemed university’ tag from 44 such universities, and urged the Supreme Court of India to de-recognize them.  Out of the 44 of these ‘doomed’ universities, 41 of them have several institutions under them and have a combined undergraduate and postgraduate regular student enrolment of 1,19,363, over 2000 doing PhD and MPhil, plus nearly 75,000 students pursuing distant education from

Hitting hard on forty-four ‘doomed’ universities, the Centre has recommended the Supreme Court to de-recognize these erring universities for offering both post-graduate and undergraduate courses, which according to it, are ‘fragmented with concocted nomenclatures’.

Making its stand clear on the issue, the Centre also noted that these errant institutes have been increasing seats ‘disproportionately’ much beyond their actual intake capacity.

With the constant and mounting pressure over the issue of bringing the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) into effect, the centre has promised to bring the Act into effect very soon. This happened after the Supreme Court expressed anguish over the Centre’s lack of interest shown in this matter.