India need 35,000 more colleges: Sibal

India needs an additional 600 universities and 35,000 colleges in the next 12 years to ensure that greater percentage of students take up higher education, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said today.

"The Right to Education (RTE) Act, which will come into force from April, is based on the premise that India cannot wait to get the critical mass of students in the 18-24 age group to move to the university level. An additional 600 universities and 35,000 colleges will be required over the coming 12 years," the minister said at a seminar organised by CII.

The Union Minister said there were 480 universities and 22,000 colleges at present but these were not sufficient and asserted that private sector participation would be an essential element in coming years.

"In every developing country the Gross Development Ratio requires that out of 100 students at least 40 should be able to go to college," Sibal said, adding that in India, the GDR aim is 30 per cent but at present only 12.4 per cent students go to college.

Education cannot be a sectoral enterprise but must be a national endeavour, he said and called for a change in mindsets, openness to fresh ideas, liberalisation and involvement of the community at the local level.

The minister endorsed an independent accreditation system and legislation to check education misdemeanours.

He called for a "self disclosure format" for education institutes for assets, faculty, teacher-pupil ratio and fee structure. In case the institutions furnish wrong information, there should be laws to punish them, Sibal said.

The minister also stated that the RTE Act entails the local people to take onus of the school. Seventy-five per cent of the management committee will be locals, including mothers.

The government will provide a framework, but the onus of effective functioning would be on the people, he said.

A state-level framework for providing loan assistance to students was also an inclusive agenda of education, Sibal said.

He asserted that north India had immense potential in power generation, water management, sugar, ethanol, leather, and wheat and suggested that textile hubs like Ludhiana could open institutes.

He maintained that there was a need to move away from textual learning and adopt a multiple disciplinary approach.