Education revamp to make India a knowledge power by 2020: Kapil Sibal

Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal today said the entire education system of the country was being revamped to make India a knowledge power by 2020.

Addressing the 92nd convocation of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) he said, "my vision is that India should become a knowledge power in the coming decade."

He said, "recognising the challenge we are doing a revamp of the entire education system on a holistic and systematic basis. The government is appreciative of these efforts and has committed to investing more, much more on education than ever before."
     
"The eleventh five year plan (2007-12) is virtually a national education plan. The plan allocation for education has been stepped up from around 7.7 per cent of budgetary support in the 10th plan to over 19 per cent in the 11th plan. It is
going to be a more than five-fold increase in spending on education."

"The unprecedented investment in education is to ensure that we can avail a critical mass of educated human resource to provide us with the necessary advantage," he said.

Until recently only 12 out of 100 children, who passed high school, became graduates. The number must swell to at least 30 graduates, he said.

Sibal said, "the country has rapidly leap-frogged from an agrarian economy to a service economy. In the emerging global knowledge economy, education has become a great leveller among individuals and nations".

"Accordingly, we have to shift from the earlier paradigm of education system, which was linear and passive to a new system that is dynamic, inclusive, focused on cultivating creativity and intellectual skills and geared up to provide vocational and professional education," the minister said.

In the convocation, over 6,000 students were bestowed upon PhDs, Masters and Bachelor degrees in different streams by Chancellor Karan Singh.