New Delhi: India needs an additional 600
universities and 35,000 colleges in the next 12 years to
ensure that greater percentage of students take up higher
education, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said on Tuesday.
"The Right to Education (RTE) Act, which will come into
force from April, is based on the premise that India cannot
wait to get the critical mass of students in the 18-24 age
group to move to the university level. An additional 600
universities and 35,000 colleges will be required over the
coming 12 years," the minister said at a seminar organised by
CII.
The Union Minister said there were 480 universities and
22,000 colleges at present but these were not sufficient and
asserted that private sector participation would be an
essential element in coming years.
"In every developing country the Gross Development Ratio
requires that out of 100 students at least 40 should be able
to go to college," Sibal said, adding that in India, the GDR
aim is 30 per cent but at present only 12.4 per cent students
go to college.
Education cannot be a sectoral enterprise but must be a
national endeavour, he said and called for a change in
mindsets, openness to fresh ideas, liberalisation and
involvement of the community at the local level.
The minister endorsed an independent accreditation
system and legislation to check education misdemeanours.
He called for a "self disclosure format" for education
institutes for assets, faculty, teacher-pupil ratio and fee
structure. In case the institutions furnish wrong information,
there should be laws to punish them, Sibal said.
The minister also stated that the RTE Act entails the
local people to take onus of the school. 75 per cent of the
management committee will be locals, including mothers.
Government will provide a framework, but the onus of
effective functioning would be on the people, he said.
A state-level framework for providing loan assistance
to students was also an inclusive agenda of education, Sibal
said.
He asserted that north India had immense potential in
power generation, water management, sugar, ethanol, leather,
and wheat and suggested that textile hubs like Ludhiana could
open institutes.
He maintained that there was a need to move away from
textual learning and adopt a multiple disciplinary approach.
PTI
