IAS-like Indian education service suffers problems'

Hyderabad: The long pending demand of Indian Education Service (IES) has come to the forefront with NDA government keen on introducing it.

Similar to the coveted IAS, IPS, IFS cadres, IES will be an all India service with HRD as the cadre controlling authority. Till the IES comes into existence, interim steps will be taken for a one-time special recruitment by UPSC from among the existing academic and administrative positions in the education sector.

The HRD ministry has come out with this proposal as part of National Education Policy-2016 and invited views from stakeholders until end of this month. The idea of an IES was first floated in the late 1980s when P V Narsimha Rao was the HRD Minister. General discontent was noticed in teachers and their representatives that administrative heads in the education department (usually bureaucrats) do not take their views seriously and in some instances do not even meet them, an official said.

By creating IES, specialists in education will occupy top administrative posts and motivate their subordinates to work with dedication and commitment. These officers will be given training so that they can  fit into the job, he felt.

However, noted academician Prof. Haragopal felt that the state’s rights over universities will be lost if this decision was implemented. “This is part of larger efforts by the union government to centralise and have control over the education sector in all states. Appointing IAS and IPS officers for administration purposes is okay, but how can you ask the UPSC to intervene in the functioning of universities (that are autonomous and not part of government).