Signalling that the Government was readying for general elections, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday instilled a “sense of urgency” as he gave a clear-cut deadline of two months for finalising a massive expansion plan in the education sector.“Proposals for setting up 6,000 schools covering all blocks, having 30 Central universities and providing large capacities in vocational education must be finalised within the next two months. Locational decisions must be taken fast,” Singh said in his concluding remarks at the full Planning Commission meeting on education. “We cannot discuss options endlessly. We need to work with a sense of urgency and work to fixed timelines if we have to see action on the ground,” he said.His Cabinet colleague and HRD Minister Arjun Singh too didn’t mince words when asked if the Government had polls in mind: “In politics, if you are not prepared for elections, you are out. We are prepared for elections, if need be.”The Prime Minister, with respect to vocational education, in fact, set a deadline of October 2: “I want the Planning Commission, in consultation with all ministries concerned, to finalise this proposal before October 2 so that we see some real action on the ground this year.” The proposal is about developing the capacity for enrolling one crore children under this stream.The Prime Minister’s speech had deadlines for every proposal. “The proposal for setting up 6,000 high quality model schools with costs to be shared by the Centre and states needs to be finalised within the next few weeks.”With regard to the Scheme for Universalisation of Access for Secondary Education (SUCCESS), the PM said, “Its details need to be quickly spelt out and discussed with states so that we are ready to launch it from 2008-09.”He also asked for moving the focus on the quality improvement of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, called the “second phase of SSA”.The HRD Minister in his speech asked for more funds, be it for IITs, IIMs, Central universities or for new vocational schools.
