Smriti Irani appeals to private institutions to work with govt.

Jasleen Kaur | The Dollar Business

Smriti Zubin Irani, the HRD Minister on Wednesday requested private educational institutions to collaborate with the government to improve access, provide transparency and quality of higher education in India.

Speaking at the National Conference on “Reforming & Rejuvenating India’s Higher Education” organized by the Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) in New Delhi, Irani urged private institutions to take part in the government’s Unnat Bharat programme under which premier educational institutions like IIMs & IITs are adopting neighbouring villages and rejuvenating their educational system.

“Considering the spread of mobile technology that has reached even the hitherto unexplored areas of the country, we would be launching Bharat Vani App on May 25 that would provide students with higher education study material in 22 different languages. However, within next year, we would provide access to the same content in 100 non-scheduled and tribal languages, for greater reach and accessibility,” Irani said.

“We are also coming up with an innovative mobile app and portal, IIT Pal that would provide the engineering aspirants with IIT question papers of last 50 years to all the students across the country. The portal and app would also have video lectures by top-notch faculty and audio aid in 13 different languages,” she added.

Several well-known educationists, policy makers, industry leaders, administrators and thought leaders consisting president of EPSI G. Viswanathan, alternate president of EPSI H. Chaturvedi took part in the national conference.

“Institutions have sometimes complained about politicization and lack of autonomy. While there are no two minds on the need for a major overhaul in India’s higher education system, there are differences that need to be ironed out. Through this platform our aim is to provide such an interface between policymakers and education providers to arrive at a common minimum agenda for reform,” G Viswanathan, President of EPSI said.

Viswanathan assured Irani on behalf of EPSI that the society’s members will support the ministry in its initiatives and implement the ideas made by her in the conference.