Standing in for rahul gandhi, minister of state (HRD) D purandeshwari on wednesday spoke in favour of involving corporates in the education sector, especially vocational education. Purandeshwari’s remark comes at a time when the HRD ministry, headed by Arjun Singh, has been against the private sector participation in education.“The corporate sector needs to come in a big way at the centrestage of our educational system particularly in vocational education,” Purandeshwari, said while addressing the 4th International Conference of the Asia Education Foundation.Purandeshwari added,”Cent per cent success in educational schemes is yet to be achieved” and assured that shortcomings and deficiencies in the functioning of these schemes are continuously being monitored. “The emphasis for us are the child-centric schemes.”She said that the number of out-of-school children in India fell from 39 million to 10 million in November 2005.“There should be a vocational bias at the end of secondary education in the absence of which, students proceed to pursue degree courses in general education. This results in the creation of surplus manpower that does not fulfill the productive requirements of the country. Diversification of education at secondary level will reduce the pressure on higher education. Vocationalisation and terminalisation of education at the middle school and secondary education level is essential to gear up educational development for economic growth,” Purandeshwari said.The conference was part of the Australian Government initiative to promote learning of Asian countries in Australian schools.
