Karnataka's Higher Education Department to be revamped, to adopt new practices

The Higher Education Department in Karnataka is planning on revamping several of its systems to ensure transparency in its functioning.

Rashmi Mahesh, Higher Education Principal Secretary informed reporters on Wednesday, December 7 that the revamp will include a four-tiered grievance redressal system that allows for tracking as well as an ‘adalat’ for pension-related cases of retiring staff and faculty, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express. “The aim is to get rid of duplicity in the state’s higher education system. There should be one point of entry for stakeholders to enter information so that this is available to the department, officials, university and college. Digital learning and unified data are the two best practices being advocated across the world. So these must be practised in all higher education institutions,” said Higher Education Minister Dr Ashwathnarayan CN, TNIE reported.

NEP implementation
Meanwhile, on students facing issues with the National Education Policy (NEP), he said the issue is to do with implementing a new system rather than a lack of preparations. “There will be challenges related to implementing a new education system. However, we will look into it. Prior preparations for the implementation, including formulation of syllabus and curriculum has happened on time,” the minister said.

As many as 6,500 smart classrooms to come up by March
Department of Collegiate and Technical Education (DCTE) Commissioner Pradeep P said the planned 6,500 smart classrooms in colleges will be completed by March. He also mentioned that a decision was taken to allow students to communicate in both English and Kannada at colleges. “A majority of students attending government colleges come from socio-economically poor backgrounds. Due to this, their English speaking is poor, but their writing is excellent. Taking this into account, we have also made the decision to allow students to write their examinations in English or Kannada,” he said.

Meanwhile, a recent government order has given till the end of the month to implement several measures to ensure transparency, including updating university and college websites. “In terms of promotions, these have not occurred properly in the last ten years. By the end of this month, we are hoping to publish new draft rules regarding promotions of both teaching and non-teaching staff,” he said.