Some excerpts from the PM’s address with comments and questions from me
June 23rd, 2007
In the last 100 years, we have had only one Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore. In past two years, we have sanctioned six more.
By six more he probably means: IISER Kolkata, IISER Pune, IISER Mohali, IISER Trivendram, IISER Bhopal, NISER Bhubaneswar.
We have opened new national institutes in medical sciences, engineering and management.
Here he means the 6 AIIMS branch campuses, the 3 new IITs, and new IIMs (so far only one IIM in Andhra has been announced.)
Today, I am happy to announce that we intend to establish 30 new Central Universities across the country. The work on the modalities for setting these up has begun and the Ministry of Human resource Development, the University Grants Commission and the Planning Commission are working to operationalize this in the next 2-3 months.
It is not clear if all these 30 new central universities will be brand new started from scratch or upgraded ones. Earlier he had said that the country currently has 20 central universities with 16 states not having any. Will these 30 new ones include the new ones announced for the north eastern states (Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh). Will some favorite states, ruled by UPA allies or from where powerful UPA ministers come from get multiple new ones? Will states that already have multiple central universities get more?
I recognize that education is an important responsibility of State Governments and most educational activity is managed at the state level. That’s the reality. States and local Governments must also do more to expand access to remote areas and to the marginalized groups of society. As I had said earlier, 340 districts in our country have extremely low college enrolments. The Central Government would work with the states to support the expansion of colleges to these 340 districts. Each of these districts should strive to have at least one good college and the Central Government is considering ways of funding their establishment.
I wonder which are those 340 districts and how many are in Orissa. The Orissa government should immediate work on the list of districts and the colleges there in.
Access to higher education has two dimensions of which expansion of supply is only one. If the latent demand for higher education is to be converted to a real one, we need to consider ways of improving the financial resources of aspiring students as well. While our Government has taken several steps to expand the scholarships available to students, including students from SCs, STs and minorities, we need a much larger national programme so that no one who wants to pursue further education is denied the opportunity for lack of resources. … We are working on a national system of scholarships and easily available loans so that all needy and deserving students have access to the necessary finances to fund their higher education. We will realize this goal I hope in the coming year.
If the University system expands, it also needs a larger pool of school leavers. We are working on a plan to gradually universalize secondary schooling in our country. This programme will build on the success of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and will cover the entire country in 2-3 years. Further, in order to promote excellence, we are working on a programme for having one high quality school in every block of our country. These publicly funded nearly 6000 schools all over India will establish benchmarks for excellence in public schooling which can then be the role models for the rest of the public educational system.
These are all great initiatives.
Entry Filed under: Central University of Orissa, Koraput