University Grants Commission (UGC) Member M M Ansari yesterday hit out at HRD Minister Smriti Irani accusing her of “abruptly” discontinuing mid-session teaching of German language in Central schools and said her tenure so far as been “far from satisfactory”.
He said he was not bothered about the possible fallout of his open outburst against Irani as “everyone is concerned about the performance of the Ministry but nobody is talking about it”.
The minister’s office refused to comment on his allegations.
Ansari said she has failed to announce a single scheme or measure that will strengthen the education sector or carry out institutional reforms that will impact the quality of education.
“All that she has done is announcement of new institutes and scholarship programmes that are discriminatory in nature and will further burden the system facing shortage of faculty and quality.
“Judging by her performance, nothing much is happening….it has been far from satisfactory,” he said.
In this context, he recalled a statement by Irani during the row over her educational qualification that the country will judge her by her performance.
Ansari, who had earlier been critical of the way the Ministry directed University Grants Commission (UGC) to rollback the controversial ‘four year undergraduate programme’ of Delhi University, maintained that a similar stand was taken to discontinue the German programme mid-session.
“You could have done it (to discontinue) but it has to have its own timings,” he said, underlining the difficulties faced by students following the decision.
