Education is precondition of economic growth: Manmohan

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that a well educated population, adequately equipped with knowledge and skills, is a precondition of sustained economic growth.
The expansion of educational opportunities at all levels (from elementary to higher education) has contributed to accelerate economic growth by creating a more productive labour force endowed with enhanced knowledge and skills and promoting and encouraging modern attitudes among all the diverse segments of population, he said.
In his inaugural address on the occasion of 17th Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Social Sciences Institutions (IASSI), he said education is well recognised as an instrument of fast economic development and is key to the achievement of social and economic transformation.

IASSI is a federal body of Universities and research Institutions in India founded by Tarlok Singh, who through his work and writings left a lasting imprint on all areas of governance in this country.
Education, and particularly higher education has drawn attention in recent times as never before, to the advent of a knowledge society in which knowledge is not just a means of cultural advancement or skill improvement, but knowledge as mover of technology and innovation, itself has become an industry providing lead to economic growth, he said.
There is a close relationship between the generation of knowledge and innovations leading to higher productivity, he said.

"The adoption of innovations and absorptions of new technologies depends on spread of education in general and science education in particular. The fast growing economies in the 21st century are going to be knowledge dominated and largely service economies," he said.

The expansion of education and its equitable access will determine largely the future of economic and social progress of India, he said.
The expansion of education determines not only the rate of economic progress but also the rate of social and economic transformation, he said.
"Whether the nature of this transformation and economic progress will be inclusive or exclusive depends on the equitable access and quality of education for all below the age of 25 years," he said.

India has experienced an absolute decline in workforce engaged in agriculture as cultivators and agricultural labourers, he said.
As per NSS surveys, the percentage of workforce engaged in agriculture in 1999-2000 was 56.64 per cent which declined to 48.9 per cent in 2011-12, he said.
The workforce being released from agriculture is shifting to urban areas in search of work, he said.
It is through the education and employment that the common people can be empowered and made partners in economic and social transformation of the country, he said.
The religious, caste and class divisions can be overcome by an educated society endowed with values based on equality, liberty and fraternity, he said.

Educated individuals can be transformed into culturally advanced citizens who have the capacity to enjoy their own liberty and respect liberty of others in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society of India which is correctly described as 'unity in diversity', he said.
"The educated citizens also become participants in deepening and widening of democracy, observing rule of law and saving the polity from deviations from democratic principles," he said.
While noting the great economic progress India has made since the liberalisation of economy in 1991, he lamented that the benefits of this progress are not equitably distributed.
Apart from inequality in distribution of wealth/productive resources, the differentials in educational attainments and skills explain the growing inequality in the income, he said.

In the situation of growing inequality, the quality of education has also become highly differentiated, he said.
"There are schools for haves and schools for have nots leading to social segregation of children from different classes of population," he said.
Although 67 per cent of India's population live in the rural India but the percentage of rural students in the higher education is very low, he said, adding that there is dire need to improve infrastructure in rural schools.
There is also a need to bring changes in the attitude of educational administration and motivational level of teachers in the government and aided schools, he said.

The work in educational institutions need to be regularly monitored without compromising their autonomy, he said.
Underlining the importance of higher education, the former prime minister said: "For a knowledge based society, the base of higher education has to be wide - wider the base, higher the peak."
He also exhorted the government to achieve the long cherished target (since 1968) of spending 6 per cent of GDP on education through public funding.
While recognising the role played by 'for profit' private educational institutions, he cautioned against too much dependence on private providers which could lead to non- inclusive educational system.

Access to Information and Knowledge is the most important ingredient for quality of education and barring a few exceptions, quality of higher education in India leaves much to be desired, he said.
"Text books are basic to teaching and learning. Most of the available text-books are not even well written. Somehow, in India, the best known scholars and scientists do not write text books, while in the West, even noble laureates have written text books," he said, underlining the need for translations into regional Indian languages of foreign Journals and magazines.
"Special attention has to be paid to the education of women if their participation in labour force is to go up," he said.

If the country has to realize the full potentials of demographic dividend of our young population and to qualify for being a global power, it has no other option but to achieve high levels both in quality and quantity of education, he added.