The higher the ranking of institution, the greater the autonomy: Prakash Javadekar

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar claimed that India spends nearly four percent of its GDP on education.

New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday offered greater autonomy for educational institutions which perform well.

Speaking at an event here, the minister said education was a `national agenda` not a `political agenda`.

Reiterating the Centre`s commitment towards improving the quality of education in the country, Javadekar ensured that after demonetisation announcement, the Centre has more money to spend on education.

"I want to announce from here that we are in favour of granting greater autonomy to the educational institutions, particularly deemed and private universities. But then to enjoy that autonomy, they will have to be top ranked," said Javadekar.

"The higher the ranking, the greater the autonomy. Top ranking institutes can enjoy as much as 90 percent autonomy and only 10 percent regulations. The average universities will have 50:50 and the bad universities will have 90 percent regulation and ten per cent freedom," he said.

Javadekar attributed the lack of infrastructure for research and innovation as well as the lack of decent scholarships behind Indian students going offshore for higher studies and asserted the government was working towards improving the quality of higher education in the country.

"The government has been focussing on how to arrest the outflow of students to foreign institutes. The need is to develop research and innovation infrastructure in our educational institutes and we are doing that in a big way. We are also stressing on enhancing scholarships," Javadekar said.

"The need is also to change the global perception about our higher educational institutes. We are building 20 world class universities and endeavouring to ensure that our higher educational institutes feature among the top ranked institutes in the world," he said.

Javadekar claimed that India spends nearly four percent of its GDP on education, of which nearly 1.4 percent is on higher education.

He said the share would go up to six percent of the GDP in the near future.

"The country is fast changing and with demonetisation eliminating black money and bringing in more money into the system, the government will have more funds to spend on education."

"Education is not a political agenda but a national agenda. We do not politicise education. Our aim is to improve the education system in a mission mode," Javadekar said.

(With IANS inputs)