The reconstituted Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) on Tuesday trashed the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) at its 55th meeting chaired by HRD Minister Arjun Singh and said that the Prime Minister backed panel had not engaged in wider consultations before formulating its recommendations.

The major recommendations of the high-profile commission headed by Sam Pitroda — creation of a single overarching regulatory structure, rationalisation of varsity fees to meet at least 20 per cent of the institute’s expenditure, a Central Board of Undergraduate Education — have all been rejected by the CABE.

“The CABE members felt that the NKC had not done any exercise in holding wider consultations before coming up with their recommendations. Members felt that the NKC had picked up issues that are already being worked upon by the ministry. There were serious concerns raised on recommendations like usage of campus land for revenue generation. The issue of differential salaries was also resented because members feel that it will lead to disparity and neglect of faculties in the social sciences and humanities section. We have the CABE inputs and the NKC inputs as well, we will now take a view on it,” R P Agarwal, Secretary Higher Education, told reporters on the margins of the CABE committee meeting.

The HRD Ministry also issued a statement saying that several members representing various states felt that the NKC suggestions should not be rushed through as the same had not been sufficiently debated in society. Meanhwhile, the other issue that was taken up at the CABE meet was to make sports and games an integral part of school education. The proposal moved by Minister of State for Sports M S Gill called for making Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalays role models in the field.