Sibal for greater Centre-State partnership in education

Underlining the need for increased partnership between the Centre and state governments on education, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today asked all states to give within three months a view of their objectives in the field of higher education by 2020.  

"In the next three months...Each state must give its vision as to what it wishes to do by 2020 in the filed of higher education," he said at a conference here attended by higher education secretaries of states.  

The vision should contain "what is the state of affairs (of education) at present, kind of inputs required to realise that vision and budgetary allocation in the years to come," he said.  

It should also let the Centre know "how they (states) wish to improve the gross enrollment ratio and where the state is likely to be by 2020, besides, how many colleges and universities they have," he said at the meet.  

He said with such visions, the Centre would be better placed to collaborate with the states in the context of their vision and set benchmarks where the Government would like India to reach by 2020.  

"The state has the first responsibility to educate the child. Unless we look at the national enterprise as a partnership between the Centre and the state we don't think we will be able to deliver for India," he added.

Sibal, however, made it clear that the Centre's intention was not to monitor the state education sector but to collaborate for the good of education.  

He said the vision document by states should reflect how the school education system should be revamped to increase the gross enrolment ratio in the country which is close to that of sub-Saharan countries.  

The document should also contain steps to raise quality of teaching and attract the best faculty.  

Observing that India would be the education hub of the 21st century contributing human resource to countries with declining population, he said all efforts should be made to raise the intellectual capabilities of students keeping future challenges in mind.  

There should be more industry-institute linkages to attain this objective and more emphasis laid on innovation, he said.  

Talking about the role of ICT revolution in the higher education sector, he said its utility should be exploited in addressing issues like shortage of faculty and dissemination of knowledge.  

The Minister lamented declining investment in the education sector by state governments in comparison to the Central Government and said "increasing investment in higher education is a must" if quality education has to be ensured. The investment by the state governments as percentage of GDP in higher education decreased to 2.73 per cent in 2007-08 from 3.76 per cent in 2000-01.

However, the share of the Central Government has increased by 0.91 per cent during the same period, Sibal said.  

The conference was also attended by Minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari.  

Speaking on the occasion, Higher Education Secretary R P Agarwal said they have sought inputs from the state governments on various schemes and committee reports.

States have been asked to give their inputs on recommendation of the Yash Pal committee report which has suggested radical changes in higher education and setting up of a national commission for higher education and research.  

"Inputs have also been sought on a proposal by the Centre to come up with a law that punishes those who indulge in education malpractice," he said.