National Knowledge Commission

                                       National Knowledge Commission

 

In its endeavour to transform the knowledge landscape of the country, the National Knowledge Commission has submitted  around 300 recommendations on 27 focus areas during its three and a half year term. While the term of the NKC has come to an end, the implementation of NKC’s recommendations is currently underway at the Central and State levels.

 

The Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Constituted the National Knowledge Commission on 13 June 2005, It is a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, with the objective of transforming India into a knowledge society. In particular, the Commission was to advise the Prime Minister’s Office on policy related to education, research institutes and

reforms needed to make India competitive in the knowledge economy. The Commission was to recommend reform of the education sector, research labs, and intellectual property legislation; as well as consider whether the Government could itself upgrade its use of the latest techniques to make its workings more transparent.

 

The NKC website was launched in February 2006.

The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) consists of the following eight members:

1.         Sam Pitroda, Chairman

2.         Dr. Ashok Ganguly, Corporate leader

3.         Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)

4.         Dr. Deepak Nayyar, former Vice-chancellor, University of Delhi

5.         Dr. Jayati Ghosh, economist at Jawaharlal Nehru University

6.         Dr. Sujatha Ramdorai, TIFR

7.         Dr. P Balaram, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

8.         Prof. Amitabh Mattoo, Former Vice Chancellor, Jammu University.

9.         

The organisational structure of the NKC is flat. The Secretariat is headed by an Executive Director and consists of around 8-9 research associates. It also has four advisors who advises the commission on different issues. The Secretariat of the Commission is located in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

 

In December 2006, the Commission brought out a ‘Report to the Nation 2006’. It includes the following recommendations submitted to the Prime Minister:

1.         Libraries

2.         Knowledge

3.         E-governance

4.         Translation

5.         Languages

6.         National Portals

7.         

Many of the recommendations of the NKC are already in the implementation stage by different ministries of the Government. This includes areas such as Libraries, e-governance and translation. Some of the major areas under work are higher education, vocational education, entrepreneurship, school education etc.

 

The NKC consults a wide range of stake-holders and experts on each area before submitting the recommendations to the Prime Minister. Each area has a working group which is headed by a prominent person in that field. The Working Group members meet several times to submit a report to the NKC. The NKC members then hold discussions on the report before submitting it to the Prime Minister. After submitting the recommendations, an extensive coordination also takes place with the Planning Commission of India and relevant ministries of the Government.

 

As many of the components of the education sector remains state subjects in India, NKC representatives also visit various state governments and conduct deliberations with secretaries of education departments for reforming of the education sector at the state level.


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