Privatisation of education in Gujarat a disaster: Rahul

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday said there was a lot of privatisation of education in Gujarat and it was a disaster.

Answering queries after his speech at the valedictory session of the 112th annual session of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said there was a need to create a balance where public education system creates a competitive atmosphere.

"There is a belief and this is very evident in Gujarat that private education system is the answer. A lot of privatisation has been done of university, college system in Gujarat. What is result is a disaster," Gandhi said.

"What you need is a balance system where there is a public sector education system of high quality that creates a competitive atmosphere for the private sector," he added.

He said there were very good educational institutions such as IITs and IIMs and there was need to transform them as education systems that are connected to the rest of the country and the world.

Answering another query, he said Make in India for him was "not top down exercise where you take all defence contracts and hand them to certain players", but should be a "bottom up exercise where you create competition among thousands of youth to create big companies of tomorrow".

He said business leaders present in the audience should seen as part of "central strategy for creating jobs" but they were not getting support from the government.

"The Congress will attempt to make you the central pillar of job strategy for the nation. A lot of it comes from how you position it," he said, adding that he had learnt from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on positioning.

Gandhi said that only the network of small, micro and medium businesses was the only force capable of meeting the challenge from China which was creating 50,000 jobs every day against only 450 in India.

--IANS

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