of ideas. Knowledge capital generation will lead to wealth creation
and removal of poverty. The youth of the country would have to be at
the forefront for leading the nation to social and economic progress.
This can be done by empowering the youth and children through
education to harness the demographic dividend."
This was stated by Union Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD)
Kapil Sibal in his address at the inaugural session of the 58th
meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE).
In his opening remarks, Sibal put forth the main challenges facing the
nation, before the State Education Ministers and eminent members from
academia and civil society.
He stated that delivering the right to elementary education enshrined
in the Constitution has been taken up in right earnest by the Centre
and the States.
He also placed the suggestion that the Right to Education (RTE) needs
to be extended up to the secondary level (class 10) to provide avenues
for children emerging from elementary education, as a natural
corollary.
In other words, recognizing the right of a child to 10 years of free
and compulsory education needs to be carried forward by the Central
and State Governments in the decade ahead.
In this context, he stressed the need to ensure quality in educational
delivery towards bringing down drop-out rates and providing value to
the children through the educational process.
Sibal stated that one of the critical challenges before the nation is
to develop, recognize and enhance skills in youth to be productive
members of society and the economy.
To integrate vocational education and skill development, it was
essential to develop a set of nationally recognized qualifications
tailoring the qualifications to the requirements of industry.
The National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF)
proposed in the agenda aims to embed vocational education in the
educational system providing for horizontal and vertical mobility for
youth to seamlessly move from general to vocational education.
The minister underlined the integral role of State Governments in
preparing this Framework, as the levels of diversity in skill
development in the states will best be addressed by the State
Governments.
He also said thus an element of diversity must be built into the
education system to enable mobility; and the necessary unity that is
also required will be provided by the standards set by a common NVEQF.
Another pressing need of the day was to promote transparency and
accountability of the educational system towards its primary
stakeholders i.e. children and their parents.
The Minister informed the invitees that the Centre is proposing a
legislation to prevent and prohibit adoption of malpractices in school
education (essentially to prevent the rule of money power in this
sector) for which he sought suggestions and views from the State
Governments to generate a platform for consensus.
He said that this legislation could be modeled on the lines a similar
legislation on prevention of unfair practices in Higher Education
already introduced in the Parliament and on which the recommendations
of the Standing Committee of Parliament have been received.
The minister then moving on to Higher Education sector, stated that an
important item on the agenda is consideration of the recommendations
of the recently held conference of Vice Chancellors of Central and
State Universities in the public sector, especially with regard to
reforms in the affiliation system in universities.
Affiliation had emerged in the period of colonial India for the rulers
to control what was being taught. There has to be a change in the
philosophy of affiliation to enable the power of independent thought
to flower in the collegiate system.
He requested the State Governments that efforts need to be made to
reduce the number of colleges affiliated to universities so that
universities could become centres of learning.
Union Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports, Ajay
Maken, mentioned the need to integrate physical education and sports
into the education system.
In this regard, he recounted the measures provided under RTE and the
steps taken by CBSE in its affiliated schools and exhorted States to
adopt similar measures in schools affiliated to State Boards.
Others who attended the meeting included minister of state for HRD D.
Purandeswari, Member (Education) of Planning Commission Narendra
Jadhav, Secretary of Higher Education Vibha Puri Das and Secretary of
School Education and Literacy Anshu Vaish.
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