‘Opening education sector a priority’

During his speech and also while interacting with reporters after the function,Sibal maintained his stand on the need to privatise the higher education sector. “Opening up the education sector is definitely a priority to improve the accessibility of higher education as presently the supply is far lower than the demand,” he said.

“We all appreciate and acknowledge that universally accessible and affordable public higher education is an economic and social necessity. But the government is presently unable to make the massive investment needed to realise this vision. The stark reality is higher education can no longer be conceived purely as a public good,” said Sibal. Higher education has assumed the nature of private benefit,converting the students to consumers. “Acknowledging this reality,we are doing our best to ensure that the consumers’ rights are protected and that they have easy and reasonable access to funds to finance their education,” he said.

“The private institutions should serve as an engine of social mobility,meaning that educational institutions or universities should help low income and first generation individuals to access education and become financially stable,” said Sibal.

He said the Foreign Education Providers’ Bill was a step forward to create opportunities of higher education for those who have no access to it.

“While we aim at scaling up the number of students enrolling in colleges to 42 million in 2020 from the present 14 million,still 160 million students will be left out. To give them alternative education,we need investments that may also come through foreign institutes,” he said.

Sibal said implementation of the Right To Education was his priority. “It is a historic legislation and is now at the implementation stage. However,it will take time to see the results. The state governments are also required to frame policies for its implementation,” he said.