Kapil Sibal seeks support of private sector in promoting higher education

Expressing concern over slow increase in the number of students in colleges, HRD minister Kapil Sibal today said the government intended to ensure that at least 40% children were enrolled for higher education and encouraged private sector participation in this endeavour.

"In every developing country the Gross Development Ratio (GDR) requires that out of 100 students at least 40 should be able to go to college," Sibal said, adding that in India, the GDR aim is 30% but at present only 12.4% students go to college.

He was speaking at a CII-organised discussion on 'Tomorrow's North: Green and Educated'.

The minister maintained that there were only 480 universities and 22,000 colleges in the country. To reach the goal of 30% GDR, India would need 600 universities and 35,000 colleges in the next 12 years.

He emphasised on government having only rights to ensure quality of the educational institutions and no role in appointing vice chancellors or running of the colleges.

Sibal said schools and colleges should have a system of "self-disclosure" of vital information about the number of teachers, fees, student-faculty ratio and other data. This information can even be loaded on their website.

In case an institution furnishes wrong information there should be laws to punish them, he said.

Sibal emphasised on vocational courses and said the private sector could play an important role.

He asserted that North India had immense potential in power generation, water management, sugar, ethanol, leather, and wheat and suggested that textile hubs like Ludhiana could open institutes.

Sibal said the Right to Education Act proposes that 75% of the management staff in an institution should come from the locality as they understand the needs better.

He said the education sector scenario in North India could not be compared to the South as the latter had a culture of learning while the former was busy defending borders.

Sibal maintained that there was a need to move away from textual learning and adopt a multiple disciplinary approach.