Senior Congress MLA Arjun Modhwadia on Thursday slammed the state government for the poor condition of the state's education sector.
Senior Congress MLA Arjun Modhwadia on Thursday slammed the state government for the poor condition of the state's education sector. Taking part in the discussion on budgetary demands of education department, the Congress MLA said that the state was lagging on several parameters in education.
"Gujarat is way behind several other states as far as education is concerned, be it literacy rate, budgetary allocations or school dropout ratio," Modhwadia said in the assembly.
The Congress MLA from Porbandar said that Gujarat's rank had slipped from ninth in 1991 to 12th in 2011 in literacy rate. Moreover, the funds allocated for education in Gujarat were significantly lower than more than a dozen states. He said that programmes such as Gunotsav, Praveshotsav and Vanche Gujarat had proved to be mere publicity gimmicks and had failed terribly.
“59 out of 100 students in the state discontinue studies after class X," he said.
Modhwadia also said that less than 8% of class V students in the state's rural areas could read and write English. “Gujarat ranks 28th when it comes to Class V students being able to read and write English. This is shocking and shows the utter failure of the government," he said. The MLA also said that number of students studying in government primary schools had fallen from 81.34 lakh in 1999-2000 to 60.32 lakh at present.
“The number of children has increased, but the number of those studying in government schools has fallen sharply,” he said. Modhwadia also said that the state of higher education in Gujarat was no good. “Instead of focusing on quality education, the government is more worried about the fate of self-financed
institutions," he added.
However, education minister Ramanlal Vora refuted Modhwadia’s assertions. He said that the government was determined to give the highest priority to education, and that there had been vast improvement in the field of education in the state in the past decade. He alleged that Centre was being unjust to the state by allocating lesser funds under Right to Education.
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