ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION
68. Education is, by and large, a State subject. But in its organization, universities, voluntary agencies, local authorities and the Government of India play important roles. These roles have to be properly defined and harmonized.
The Universities 69. The universities should develop themselves into autonomous communities of teachers and students who are untiringly and devotedly engaged in the pursuit of learning and excellence.
70. The proper sphere of the university autonomy which should be exercised within the broad framework of national policy lies in three fields. the selection of students; the appointment and promotion of teachers; and the determination of courses of study, methods of teaching and the selection of areas and problems of research. Among the measures needed to safeguard this autonomy, the most important is to appoint the right persons as vice-chancellors who should be distinguished educationists or eminent scholars in any of the disciplines or professions with high standing in their fields and adequate administrative experience. An exception may only be made in the case of very outstanding persons whose association with the universities would be desirable. Adequate provision should also be made for the financial needs of universities and to devise a suitable system of grant-in-aid, preferably a rolling system of block-grants to be revised every three to five years.
71. It is necessary to amend and modernize most University Acts in India. The Ministry of Education, Government of India, in collaboration with the University Grants Commission, should initiate discussions with the State Governments concerned and complete the whole programme in the next two or three years. A convention should also be developed whereby State Governments discuss their proposals for new or amending legislation in respect of universities with the Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission before they are introduced in the legislatures.
72. The principle of autonomy should be extended within the university system itself. The administration of universities should be so organized that it becomes a service agency for the promotion of academic life. Wider administrative and financial powers should be delegated to the departments of the universities; and each department should have a committee of management consisting of all professors and some readers and lecturers.
The Voluntary Effort in Education 73. Voluntary organizations have played a very important role in the development of education in the past. In the days ahead also, they can make
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a useful contribution at the secondary and university stages and within the framework of the neighbourhood school system, even at the primary stage. It should therefore be an objective of educational policy to encourage and to make full use of all assistance that can come through the voluntary efforts of the people.
74. The policy of the Government towards schools conducted by voluntary organizations should be selective rather than uniform. The system of grant-in-aid should be revised, simplified and made more liberal. All recognized schools should be eligible for grant-in-aid on some egalitarian basis which will help them to maintain proper standards. In addition, there should be provision for penal cuts for gross failure or special grants for good and outstanding work.
The Educational Institutions Conducted by Minorities 75. Educational institutions conducted by minorities have a special place in the national system of education. Specified safe guards are provided in the Constitution under Articles 29(1) and (2) and 30(1) and (2); in addition, Article 350A has been included as a special directive.
76. The Central and State Governments have also indicated in certain resolutions and statements the administrative procedures which should be adopted in respect of minorities. Thus, the Provincial Education Ministers' Conference in August 1949 passed a resolution (accepted by the Central Advisory Board of Education and the Government of India) which laid down detailed provisions for imparting both primary and secondary education to linguistic minorities through the medium of their mother tongue.
77. After taking into consideration the recommendations in the report of the States Reorganization Commission in respect of linguistic minorities, the Government of India in consultation with the Chief Ministers of States prepared a memorandum which was placed before both Houses of Parliament in September 1956. The memorandum deals, among other things, with educational safeguards at the primary and secondary stages and the affiliation of institutions using minority languages, for purposes of examination.
78. The administration at the Centre and in the States should not only respect the rights of minorities but help to promote their educational interests.
The Local Authorities 79. It is desirable to bring the school and the community together in a programme of mutual service and support. The immediate plan to be adopted in all parts of the country is to associate the village panchayats and
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municipalities* with the primary schools in their areas through the creation of local school committees. These committees should consist of the representatives of the local authorities in the area and about an equal number of persons interested in education. Their functions should be to help in improving the facilities in the schools under their charge and particularly to be responsible for the non-teacher costs. Each school committee should have a fund of its own consisting of (a) amounts placed at its disposal by the municipality or the village panchayat in the area; (b) donations and contributions voluntarily made by the parents and local community from time to time; and (c) grant-in-aid given by the State or other appropriate authority to stimulate local collection on some basis of equalization.
80. The ultimate objective should be to create specially constituted education boards for each district and for the bigger municipalities and to entrust them with the administration of all education at the school stage. Inspection and coordination should however be invariably reserved with the Government.
81. Local authorities associated with the administration of education should levy an education cess. A minimum cess should be obligatory and in order to stimulate the raising of funds, grants-in- aid should be given to match all levies above the minimum rates. The other grants-in-aid to local authorities should be, so designed as to secure equalization. In urban areas, the municipalities may be suitably grouped and grants so arranged that the poorer local authorities get larger assistance. In rural areas, the grants-in-aid should include all teacher costs and an additional amount, on the basis of equalization, for other expenditure.
The Government of India 82. The Government of India has large responsibilities in education, some directly specified in the Constitution and others implied. The Constitution makes the Union Government directly responsible for the Central Universities, for all institutions of national importance, for the enrichment, promotion and propagation of Hindi, for the coordination and maintenance of standards in higher education, for scientific and technological research and for education in international relationships which includes welfare of Indian students abroad and cultural and educational agreements with other countries. The vocational and technical training of labour is a concurrent responsibility; and so is social and economic planning which includes educational planning. The Centre also has special responsibilities for the education of the scheduled castes and tribes.
83. Its indirect or implied responsibilities however are greater still. The first is to serve as a clearing-house for educational information. The annual
*Where neither of these local authorities exist, parent-teacher associations may be formed to discharge the responsibilities proposed here for the school committees.
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survey of the development of education in the country which the Government of India now brings out should be supplemented by studies of important educational problems, either on a regional or a national basis. These studies should follow a well-planned schedule and be repeated periodically. In addition, it is also a responsibility of the Centre to promote the exchange of educational experience among the States and to co-ordinate the work of different agencies for educational development functioning at the State level.
84. Another responsibility of the Government of India is to provide stimulating national leadership in educational development. For this purpose, it should promote educational research, especially in the universities. Financial assistance from the Centre should also be available, both to State Governments and voluntary organizations, for pilot projects or other experimental work of national significance. Professional organizations in the different fields, and especially national organizations of teachers striving for improvement of education in different areas, should receive encouragement and Central assistance. The Government of India should formulate the National Policy on Education and revise it from time to time. This will provide the broad guidelines for educational development in the States and form the basis of Central grants for education.
85. Yet another responsibility of the Government of India is to provide financial assistance for educational development. it is necessary to increase the Central investment in education very considerably and to channel it into three programmes. The first is to expand the Central sector to a very great extent for the expansion of national scholarships, development of agricultural, engineering and medical education, promotion of educational research and Sanskrit studies, establishment of institutions specializing in social sciences and humanities and increasing the allocations to the University Grants Commission for centres, of advanced study, schools of education, post- graduate education and research, maintenance grants to State universi- ties, qualitative improvement of higher education and provision of student services and amenities.
86. The second programme of Central aid is to supplement the Central sector by providing ear-marked Central grants to State Governments for the development of selected schemes of high priority. It may be desirable to divide the total funds available with the Government of India for giving ear-marked grants to State Governments into two parts. One part should be utilized for giving ear-marked grants to State Governments for schemes of national significance (e.g., the adoption of Indian languages as media of education at all stages) and the second part should be distributed to State Governments on some egalitarian basis and ear-marked for such priority schemes as would be selected by the State Governments themselves.
87. The funds thus allocated to car-marked grants should be voted separately by Parliament. There should be adequate machinery to see that
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these arc utilized for the purpose for which they are granted and a report on their utilization and the results achieved should be laid annually before Parliament.
88. The third programme of Central aid is that the Centre and the States should annually share, in some agreed proportion, the total expenditure incurred on the salaries and allowances of teachers. This will enable the Centre to give effect to a national policy regulating the remuneration of teachers which is so crucial to the quality of education.
The State Governments 89. Education being a State subject, State Governments will have to develop several important programmes to discharge their responsibility in this field effectively.
90. They should prepare long-term and short-term plans of educational development in their areas within the broad framework of the national policy on education.
91. They should provide a statutory basis for education by enacting comprehensive Education Acts which will replace all the miscellaneous laws and executive orders (e.g., grant-in-aid code) which now exist.
92. Departments of Education in the States should be strengthened considerably. The administrative structure and procedures should be reformed to emphasize variety and elasticity rather than rigidity and uniformity. The quality of personnel should be improved through an increase in the number of posts at the higher levels, reform in recruitment procedures and provision of pre-service and in-service training. The basic scales of pay in the administrative and teaching wings should be made the same in order to make a free flow of personnel between the teaching and administrative wings possible.
93. A centralized educational administration may not be effective in many States. Besides, there are immense variations of educational development between the districts. It is therefore desirable to adopt the district as the principal unit for educational planning, administration and development. The district education officer should be given adequate status and delegation of authority, the main responsibility of the State-level Directorate being general coordination and policy.
94. The bulk of the finances needed for educational development will also have to be raised by the State Governments. At present, the State Governments raise 60 per cent of the total educational expenditure which comes to about 22 per cent of their total resources, the individual variations ranging from 16 to 39 per cent. In future, the total educational expenditure of the State Governments will be much larger and may come to about one-third to one-half of their total resources.
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