We want higher education to focus on innovation: Prakash Javadekar

Three ministries in three years is a task for anyone. However, Prakash Javadekar, currently Union Minister for Human Resource . Development, has handled all of them with aplomb. In fact, his latest assignment was seen was a sign of the Prime Minister's growing confidence in his abilities after he had successfully taken on challenges in Information and Broadcasting, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Parliamentary Affairs. In an interview to Shailendra Paranjpe, he talks about his achievements in all these ministries during his tenures there.

As far as HRD ministry is concerned, what are your achievements?

(The) Biggest challenge was assessment of deteriorating quality of government schools and we zeroed in on this challenge. We gave a thrust on learning outcomes and competence of students by deciding minimum competence level. With introduction of such competence levels, we won't see anymore that a Class 8 student can't perform Class 3 mathematics.

But wasn't it there previously?

It was mentioned in the Right To Education 2006 Act but it was not notified. Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated this approach of outcome orientation, and the learning outcome initiative was also because of his insistence on outcome orientation. What we have done is we have made a training module for teachers mandatory. We are trying to bring accountability at all levels in schools, including for teachers, students, and even parents. Due to lack of this accountability, school education has suffered a lot.

What are the measures taken to ensure quality in school education?

We have brought back 10th board examination in CBSE. We are in the process of making a law so that states will be allowed to decide whether a student can be held back between the fifth and eighth standards. This detention policy will provide autonomy to states. There will be a provision for giving a chance to students to re-appear for examinations in June if s/he fails in March examination before a final decision of holding him/her back in the same standard (is taken). There are 25 states which want this kind of autonomy.

What about higher education?

I am coming to that. We want higher education to be focus on research and innovation. Through a higher education finance agency, we are putting in Rs 20,000 crore in higher education through debt instruments. We are putting this money for pushing research infrastructure within quality institutions. We want to revamp entire teacher training and pre-service and in-service training.

Are there any rewards for innovation?

We have created Prime Minister scholarship for best innovative student or best of the best innovator among students. This scholarship is worth Rs 75,000 per month.

As thrust is on online and social media, would it reflect it in education?

Why not? We are creating a national academic depository and we want to provide digitalised demat degrees so that no one can fake or fudge or tamper any degree or educational document. If someone tries, they can be booked.

What kind of degrees will these be?

We have made it compulsory for all degrees or diploma certificates to have the certificate holder's photo, mode of instruction, college through which it was availed or institution name, and Aadhar identification. We will ensure that there is no case like that shown in the film 3 Idiots.

Are there any efforts towards digitisation at the national level in your department?

We have started work on a national digital library and we have made 6 million books available on this platform. We are providing a large amount of money under Rashtriya Ucchhstar Shiksha Abhiyaan (National Higher Education Project) which will facilitate research in rural colleges. Every penny from the HRD ministry will be targeted towards quality and merit. 'Perform and get rewarded' will be the mantra for HRD. Sab Ko Shiksha, Acchhi Shiksha (Good Education For All) is our motto.

You had Information and Broadcasting portfolio in the beginning. What were your achievements in this ministry?

I brought changes of facilitating auction of FM radio, laid down digitisation of DD and AIR recordings. We will now have a new museum of National Film Archives of India. We initiated changes to ensure licences for TV channels which earlier were not granted without too much of procedures. What we did was we made it automatic and I&B verification we never stopped anybody.

What was your role as environment minister?

As far as environment is concerned, the entire ministry was looked upon as stumbling block for any development project. We changed it and brought transparency by doing everything online. The benefit of online was any applicant now can track his or her file movement

Which was the major decisions you took as environment minister?

We took policy decision of giving general approval for all defence infrastructure-related projects which were stuck for environment clearances. I had said then that if country is safe, environment could be saved and if country is at stake, what was the use of having environment? With this one decision we gave approvals for 6,000 km of border roads which was crucial for defence preparedness. Environment ministry now has laid down procedure so that standard norm is that no file comes to environment ministry. Linear projects like roads, canals, irrigation drinking water or otherwise or transmission lines we provided for transparency and decentralised processing and for this we provided for 10 regional offices. That is why no file now comes to the ministry, which has resulted in faster decision making and clearances of projects. If I have to quantify for you, the time taken for approval has come down from 580 days earlier to just 180 days.

What about action against polluting industries?

We made big revamp of waste management rules whether it is solid waste or biomedical waste or plastic or e-waste or hazardous waste like effluents, we have brought out new waste management system for construction waste and demolition waste. We were successful in announcing eco-sensitive zones for more than 400 out of 600 potential areas. We brought out revolutionary sand mining policy where district magistrate is part of environmental governance. Overall we brought in ease of doing responsible business by revamping all emission norms for polluting industries