Paper on educational reforms throws blame at HRD

The line taken by the concept paper becomes significant as Tourism Minister Ananth Kumar, who presented it, is not known to be on the best of terms with his senior colleague and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.

The concept paper noted quite harshly: 8220;No significant breakthrough could be achieved in bringing about fundamental changes in the educational system and making it an effective instrument of national change.8221; Categorising the reasons for the failure of the Education Department, the paper further said: 8220;There is no dearth of ideas or suggestion regarding educational change. But enough effort in putting the ideas into action is lacking.8221;

Analysing the failure of the elementary education schemes, the paper said the number of illiterates continued to rise as no initiative had been taken to stop the high incidence of dropouts and the infrastructural facilities were inadequate.

The document, titled Challenge of Education 1985 published by GOI, painted a vivid picture of the pathetic conditions of schools in the country and noted that the allocation for education continues to remain far below the recommended 6 per cent of GDP. Vocationalisation of secondary education had been accepted as a policy decision, targets had been revised for 2000, but even this had not been achieved and scheme had failed to take-off, the paper pointed out. 8220;The objective of strengthening higher education is far from being accomplished. Rather, we are witnessing a fast deterioration in the standard of university education,8221; the paper further stated.

The paper attributed the failure of implementation of any reform programme on three factors 8212; tardy and haphazard implementation, progressive decline in the allocation of resources and absence of an operational strategy as well as of functional instruments. Two of these are a direct criticism of the functioning of the HRD Ministry.

The paper concluded: 8220;It is hoped that this occasion the suggestions made by the paper will also turn out to be a starting point for appropriate action.8221;