 SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

8.1 The decision to adopt regional languages as media of education at University stage is part of national Policy of Education since 1968 and 1986. It is not negotiable.

8.2 The scheme of Granth Academies/University Text Book production Boards was specifically designed to implement the national policy. The scheme has not succeeded to the extent desired or expected.

8.3 The conventional reasons given for the above unsatisfactory progress are (i) reluctance of Universities to change media of education in relation to languages; (ii) lack of employment opportunities to those who study in modern Indian languages as media of instruction. While the committee has no reason to disagree with this diagnosis, the Committee has identified the following structural factors for unsatisfactory progress. Firstly higher education sub sector is fragmented into different sub-sectors and corresponding agencies dealing with it have not been identified and involved. Hence there has been a failure to develop linkages with relevant agencies, viz. UGC at the apex and AICTE. ICAR and MCI dealing with technical, agricultural and medical education. Secondly the agency for implementation of the scheme was kept outside the higher education structure. Thirdly the present institutional structure viz. CSTT and state level Academies/Boards, suffer from several managerial and marketing deficiencies.

8.4 The committee have taken note of two important documents which provide detailed and important guidelines viz. revised Programme of Action 1992 under revised NPE 1986 and the Chapter on Education in the Eighth Plan document (1992-1997).

8.5 Based on this survey and the diagnosis, the committee would like to commend to the Govt. the valuable recommendation of the Kothari Commission for setting up of a national level agency taking into account latest developments. The problem is identified as one of preparing and producing standard "Indian" text books for higher education sector as a measure of maintenance and upgradation of standards rather than as a problem in the linguistic area of coining and standardisation of terminology and use of the terminology in the language text books to be prepared and produced by Granth Academies/Boards.

8.6 The Organisation for preparation and production of text books at University level should be a national consortium under UGC called NC- HET with the active collaboration of specialist apex organisations like AICTE, ICAR and MCI.

8.7 Since the problem is that of preparation of "Indian" text books, the consortium may not exclude preparation of English text books from its purview. The consortium should also play a big role in prepration of standard Hindi text books.

8.8. The state level organisations should be in the form of consortia of respective Universities. They should work directly under the national consortium.

8.9 In the light of our review of the working of various academies/text book boards, we recommend that assistance to academies/Boards in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh & Rajasthan should be continued. Assistance to academies/boards in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, U.P., Haryana and Assam should be discontinued pending reorganisation as indicated. Assistance to cells in Agricultural Universities especially Pant Nagar & Hebbal should be taken over by ICAR. Assistance to Central Universities especially Delhi University should be taken over subject to revision by UGC. Assistance to the cells in Agricultural University Hissar, and BHU should be discontinued.

8.10. Financial assistance should be given for establishment of new academies/boards in the states of Goa, Himachal Pradesh & Manipur.

8.11. For the development of text books in local languages in Sikkim and Tripura, the assistance of the Central Institute of Indian, languages at Mysore should be taken. For English text books in N.E. region, assistance of NEHU/Central Institute of English at Hyderabad should be enlisted.

8.12. The tentative financial implications of the proposals made by us amount to Rs. 36 cores.