‘Bring professional degrees under NAD’
NEW DELHI: The Centre should take a proactive role to root out fake universities and institutions, according to a report presented by a Parliamentary standing committee on the National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill, 2011.
In its report presented in Parliament, the standing committee on human resource development welcomed a proposed legislation that aimed at maintaining a national database of academic awards in electronic format by an identified registered depository. This would evolve as a credible, authentic and easily accessible mechanism for access to and verification of academic awards, thus putting an end to the present cumbersome and time-consuming process of verification or authentication of degrees and certificates.
“When the proposed legislation comes into effect, the interests of students as well as employers will be served well. Also, the rampant use of fake certificates in the academic sphere will be curtailed to an extent,” the committee observed.
The committee suggested that all kinds of awards, either professional or technical, should be covered under the NAD Bill, 2011.
It underlined the need for inclusion of professional awards, including medical, engineering, architecture, nursing, dental, chartered accountancy and company secretary, under the proposed Bill.
The standing committee also suggested that foreign boards conducting school leaving examination through recognised schools should also have the option to lodge their awards with the NAD.
“When a National Identification Authority can be mandated for establishing, operating and maintaining a central repository, a similar authority can be mandated to have the responsibility of handling the affairs of the NAD. The only hurdle is the use of terminology. The National Academic Depository can be called National Academic Repository,” it added.The panel said by replacing the term ‘depository’ with ‘repository’, the compulsion to register NAD under the SEBI Act could be avoided.