(Top) Arjun, Joshi: Policy swipe

New Delhi, July 4 (PTI): Human resource development minister Arjun Singh took a swipe at the NDA government today, regretting the lack of any forum in the ministry to deal with issues concerning minority educational institutions. He announced a remedial internal institutional arrangement.

“Government attaches great importance to minority educational institutions. There is no focused forum in the ministry which can take responsibility to do something in this regard,” Singh told academics on the concluding day of the Dialogue on Minority Welfare and Education here.

Announcing such an arrangement, he explained that the set-up would take note of the issues concerned and be answerable to the people at large and also Parliament.

Responding to the concerns on madarsas, Singh said there was a need to evaluate everything in a fair and just manner. “Unless we open up opportunities for minorities, especially girls in areas where primary and secondary education is given, we will not be able to do justice,” he said.

Singh criticised some of the measures of his predecessor Murli Manohar Joshi, saying many of the recent decisions came out of individual vision and “became a raging controversy”.

Alluding to suggestions that the government should immediately turn them around, he said in a democratic country, it was larger consensus that should be the final word. “We will correct all these things, not in an indifferent manner but in a focused manner. There will be no scent of vindictiveness,” he said.

The minister also spoke out against the earlier policy on transfer of Kendriya Vidyalaya teachers.

Observing that the UPA government’s common minimum programme referred to specific areas in the field of education, Singh set a time limit of four months to translate the promises into reality. He said the dialogue on minority educational institutions would continue in some way or the other.

Taking part in the deliberations on the second day, Prof. H.P. Dixit, vice-chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University, said several study centres would be established in minority-dominated areas.

Job-oriented courses like motor mechanics and teacher-training programmes would be introduced across the country, he said.

University Grants Commission chairman Arun Nigavekar said special efforts would be made to make minorities a part of the fast changes in today’s world. He said the general education imparted in colleges would remain in focus and it would be useful to take advantage of the infrastructure available there.

A.M. Pathan, vice-chancellor of the Hyderabad-based Maulana Azad Urdu University, said regional centres would be opened in Mumbai, Srinagar, Bhopal, Darbhanga and Calcutta. A pharmacy college would be set up in Mumbai, he said.