Current News:All India Editors Conference on Social Sector Issues 2012

The Minister of State for Human Resource Development Smt. D.
Purandeswari has appealed the State Governments to extend full
cooperation for the betterment of education infrastructure in the
Country. Addressing the All India Editors Conference on Social Sector
Issues in Puducherry here today Dr. Purandeswari said education is a
collective and cooperative responsibility of Union as well as all
state governments.

The minister said in order to strengthen the elementary Education
sector the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan norms have been revised to correspond
with the provisions of the RTE Act. Emphasis is being given on sending
higher enrolment of girl child under the Abhiyan. She said by bringing
a constitutional amendment in the form of Article 21A, the Right of
children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 has become
operative in the country w.e.f. April 2010. She said the sharing of
funds between the Centre and states was in the ratio of 50:50 during
11th plan period and now it is proposed to make 65:35 in between
Centre and the State during the XII Plan.

She also spoke of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan(RSMA), a
flagship programme to improve access to secondary education to all
young persons according to norms through proximate locations and to
ensure that no child is deprived of secondary education of
satisfactory quality due to gender, socio economic, disability and
other barriers.

The Minister referred to the Model School Scheme announced by the
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and said this scheme envisages
providing quality education to talented rural students through setting
up of 6000 model schools as a bench mark of excellence at block level
at the school of one school per block. The scheme was launched in
2008-09 and is being implemented from 2009-10.

She said efforts are being made to improve the quality of teachers
through the Teachers Eligibility Test(TET) and urged all the stake
holders to ensure its success.

The Minister said 14 bills to bring about reform in Education Sector
have been tabled in the Parliament. She also said that to ensure that
only quality education through collaboration with foreign university
and educational institutions is imparted in India a bill is already
under the consideration of Parliament.

Smt. Purandeswari said at the time of Independence there were only 20
universities and 500 colleges which have increased to 611 universities
and university-level institutions and 31,324 colleges since August
2011. She said to face the challenges of 21st century, Government has
taken a number of Initiatives during the XI Plan period which focus on
improvement of access alongwith equity and excellence, adoption of
state specific strategies, enhancing the relevance of higher education
through curriculum reforms, vocationalisation, networking and use of
Information Technology and distance education along with reforms in
governance. Expansion, inclusion, rapid improvement in quality by
enhancing public spending, encouraging private initiatives and
initiating the long overdue major institutional and policy reforms are
at the core of these efforts, she added.

The Minister said with planned interventions and sustained efforts
considerable progress has been made in the literacy area, The literacy
rate in 2001 Census was 64.83 percent, which improved to 74.04 percent
in 2011.Interestingly literacy rate has improved sharply among females
as compared to males.

She expressed concern on the school dropout rate especially among the
girl child in the transition period of primary to secondary education
and said lack of proper toilet facilities and drinking water
facilities in the rural areas are one of reasons to it. She said the
issue is being taken up with the Ministry of Rural Development under
the convergence programmes.

She said a National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework
(NVEQF) is being developed as it will emphasize the importance of
integration of vocational education and training and general education
in all types of education and training. It will provide a common
reference frame work for linking various qualifications and setting
common principles and guidelines for a nationally recognized
qualifications system and to address the issues of skill shortage in
various sectors. She said it will be a unified system of national
qualifications covering schools, Vocational education and Training
Institutions as well as the Higher education Sector and would be
useful in integrating education and training systems encouraging
lifelong and continuing learning.

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