World Bank may decide on funding Odisha's education sector

The World Bank is keen to fund the development of the higher education sector in the state.

"The WB is keen to finance the higher education sector, particularly for quality improvement in teaching, learning and research process and improvement of gross enrolment ratio (GER) in the state. The decision, however, will be taken by the bank officials after discussion with the Odisha government", Kurt Larsen, the representative of the international funding agency said here on Tuesday.

"The talk is likely to take place in the month of July", added Soumi Saha, a consultant of the World Bank. The state government has proposed to hold an international seminar on higher education policy at Bhubaneswar in the first week of July, where the officials of WB are expected to participate.
 

The two-member World Bank team visited Berhampur University here and discussed with vice-chancellor Deepak Kumar Behera and other officials of the university.

The WB has already financed one million dollar in India for development of higher education sector in various states. It included 300 billion dollar to Madhya Pradesh. The bank has also financed 200 engineering colleges across 20 states, he said.

Two of the engineering colleges were from Odisha.The WB team has stressed on the development of teaching faculties, library and laboratory infrastructure, building centres of excellence (COE) and improvement of GER by extending support to weaker sections of people. "The GER in higher education at national level is 19.4 percent, but in the state, it stood at only 16 percent. It needs to improve", said Larsen.