Free education till Class X under 12th Plan: Sibal

He also announced the roll out of National Knowledge Centre that will connect 31,000 colleges over the next two years. “The knowledge centre will also provide 1,100 courses that have already been developed,to students free of charge. On the school education front,a National Mission of ICT has been set up and will use technology to the fullest,” he said while addressing the CII Edu Summit 2011 here.

Also,there are efforts to provide a 3D geospatial access of any college,university or school to a parent sitting at home. “The pilot project has already been carried in Karnataka,which would soon be a reality. As the future lies in geospatial technology,a parent or a student would be able to have a look at the classrooms,get information on the kind of education provided,infrastructure as well as other data pertaining to the institute sitting at his place,” Sibal said.

Giving present scenario on Gross Enrollment Ratio in India,Sibal pointed out that only 70 out of 100 students in the age group of 18-24 years reach university. “We hope to increase this ratio to15-20 per cent by 2020. If this ratio increases,45 million students would be able to go to universities compared with 5 million currently,and attain employable skills,” he said.

Looking at an investment of Rs 2.31 lakh crore in the education system,which shall definitely change the scenario in India in terms of improving infrastructure facilities in the schools,the minister said,“To start with,35 dollar tablet computer will be launched and as a pilot 10,000 tablet computers will be made available at the university level by July 2011.”

He also said all CBSE schools would act as centres for training by the private sector after the working hours and would run vocational courses. “To begin with,all engineering colleges in Delhi would run the vocational courses to take this forward,” he said.

Commenting on the examination system,the minister said the HRD ministry is proposing one exam agenda for analysing critical areas of child’s ability to take up higher education in specific fields by 2014.

Sharing his view on 100 per cent cut offs,he said that the child needs to be assessed on the basis of knowledge and not mere short-term memory power.

The HRD Ministry has initiated the process of developing a National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) and proposes industrial training courses in Class IX and X in specific subjects and sectors.

“These subjects would be different for different schools and would be based on the geographical location and corresponding industrial requirements of the industry in that particular area,” he said.

Highlighting the need for sector-specific training,Sibal said,“To begin with,150 courses have been developed in the automobile sector in consultation with the industry looking at employability criteria and similar sector-specific courses will be developed in hospitality,tourism and telecom.”

Emphasising on the need for forging linkages between industry and academia,Vijay Thadani,chairman-CII Northern Region and chief executive officer of NIIT Ltd,said CII will soon be launching a project—University-Industry Congress—engaging vice chancellors of 25 universities.