Tribunal for educational institutions

The foreign universities' bill has attracted much comment. But another important piece of legislation has gone unnoticed. This is a bill to set up tribunals at the National as well as state levels for educational instititions.

The Hindu reports:

The Educational Tribunals Bill, 2010, provides for the establishment of the State Educational Tribunals and the National Education Tribunal. The tribunals will exercise power and authority on service matters of any teacher or any other employee of a higher educational institution, on matters relating to affiliation of any higher educational institution (not being an University) with the affiliating University, on matters relating to unfair practices by any higher educational institution and matters that might be assigned to them by any other law for the time being in force.

This is a long overdue step. Teachers in educational institutions have little recourse against arbitary actions of management and the judicial processes are too slow to provide relief. Many of the reputed educational institutions, including the IIMs, have not thought it necessary to have an appropriate Grievance Redressal Mechanism or Appellate Authority, something one would regard as an elementary requirement of good governance.