Fourth, almost everything in education turns on the quality of appointments. But this has two aspects. Not only should the right people be appointed to the right positions, they have to be given an enabling environment. For instance, good individuals can get appointed and then saddled with subordinates or oversight boards that are on a completely different page. This may seem like a trivial point from the outside, but is absolutely central if good institutions need to be revived. We will not simply need good individuals here and there, but a critical mass of people who are on the same page. In short, where the HRD matters, it will have to have to do a lot of homework to ensure good teams are enabled, not simply slot random individuals here and there.

Fifth, the more difficult transitions are cultural. The HRD ministry has created a culture where all autonomous bodies become more and more subordinate to the IAS hierarchy, with joint secretaries and secretaries lording it over professors and professionals. Fundamentally, it is about government recognising that education and academia have an internal integrity and romance of their own, and they will have to be given the space to come into their own. The paradox of reform is that the government has to acquire more power in order to effect change; but it also has to learn to let go. A minister who can curb the inordinate power and hubris the bureaucracy acquired will truly revolutionise things.

A minister does not only have to contend with getting basic regulatory frameworks right. The public system will remain crucial to education at all levels. Can a minister initiate enough reforms in the public sector? Even within the public system there is a need for more diverse models, decentralisation, competition, differentiation and innovation. But the entire architecture of the public education system treats it as a homogenous whole. As currently designed, even the new world class universities run the risk of replicating the same old mistakes in their fundamental structures even as they pay lip service to reform.

... contd.