Rs 31,000 cr to upgrade higher education sector

The Centre will spend around Rs 31,000 crore to support the state universities across the country to improve the quality of higher education, said the Union minister for Human Resources Development (HRD), Kapil Sibal.

Improvement in quality of higher education is required to arrest the brain drain, he observed. Sibal made these remarks while inaugurating the first Central University in the state at Koraput on Saturday.

The minister said, about 1.6 lakh students go abroad every year for higher studies. It could be checked if the quality of education is improved within the country. At the time of independent, he recalled, there were only 20 universities and 450 colleges with combined strength of one lakh students.

The number of educational institutions in the country has increased manifold and there now 480 universities and 22,000 colleges with 1.25 crore students and 5 lakh teachers. But the quality of education is not up to mark at many places.

Stating that the government is encouraging establishment of educational institutions in the public private partnership (PPP) mode, Sibal asked the corporate houses to participate in setting up of world-class educational institutes in the state. Efforts are being made to invite private partners from within the country and overseas to participate in opening up of high quality educational institutions in the PPP mode, he added.

He announced that the Center had planned to establish 2500 model schools and 200 Kendiriya Vidyalayas in the country in the next two years to improve the primary education. In order to check the high dropout at the primary and middle school level, he said the government has recently introduced Right to Education Bill.This will help to reduce the dropout rate among the students. Out of every 100 students enrolled in primary classes, only 12 complete graduation in the country.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and higher education minister Debi Prasad Mishra and several others also spoke on the occasion.

The Central University will start its classes from Monday. The classes in English, Oriya, Sociology, Anthropology and Journalism and Mass Communication will be held at the Council of Analytical Tribal Studies (CATS) on temporary basis till the institute builds its own campus near Sunabeda.

The vice chancellor of the Central University, Surabhi Banerjee said the university has plans to introduce the school of health science, biotechnology and bioinformatics from the next year. A state-of-art audio-visual studio and community radio station would also be set up in the university campus, she added.