Key pieces of legislation to usher in higher education reforms, some of which have already been tabled in Parliament, will hopefully be passed this year, Mr Kapil Sibal, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, said here on Thursday.

At present, the crucial legislation being looked into by the Parliamentary Standing Committee include the Foreign Education Bill and the Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill.

While the Parliamentary panel's reports are still awaited on some of these Bills, there are reports that some other legislation such as the Copyright (Amendment) Bill have already been presented to the House, Mr Sibal told newspersons on the sidelines of a function.

Educational institutions

Earlier, inaugurating the Emerging Directions in Global Education 2011 (EDGE) conference on ‘Shaping the Future of Higher Education', a non-profit body consisting of vice-chancellors, presidents, directors and entrepreneurs, Mr Sibal said there were plans to connect major educational institutions across the country through optical fibre network in the next five years.

The connection would cover 26,000 colleges and 600 universities.

Honouring scientist Prof C.N.R. Rao as the best education personality of the year, Mr Sibal stressed the need to give primacy to the teaching community.

“The best minds of the country must move away from being IAS, MBAs and engineers into the teaching profession,” he said.

Lauding the Dubai and Singapore models, the Minister said we need “pooling of ideas, not marketing of ideas.”

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