Seeking to strengthen public-private partnership in education, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday sought the introduction of innovative methods in the field of education.
He asked the government educational bodies to employ outside professionals to act as part-time teachers, and lease their infrastructure to private sector for a second shift to impart specialised training.
Expressing concern that India had overtaken China in sending largest number of students to the United States for further studies, he sought measures to make India an attractive destination for foreign students seeking quality education.
"[The] government is prepared to introduce necessary changes in its rules and regulations to achieve this purpose," Vajpayee said after inaugurating the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the University Grants Commission in New Delhi.
Referring to public-private partnership, he asked "Is it not possible to lease the physical infrastructure of government-run or government-funded colleges to private educational institutions, to run a second shift for imparting training in specialised skills and services?"
"Similarly, to offset the big gap in competent and qualified teachers, can we not enable managers and professionals outside the formal academic system to work as part-time teachers?" he asked.
Asserting that the introduction of economic reform-driven education was "an urgent imperative", Vajpayee said while the government had considerably hiked spending on higher education, "it is obvious that the need far outstrips the provision".
He said there is a need to adopt innovative and flexible methods of leveraging the financial, managerial and teaching resources in the private sector.
The prime minister also suggested the creation of a partnership between universities, national laboratories, and the industry for enhancing India's research and development capabilities, terming it a "Golden Triangle".
On educational reforms, he said, "It baffles me that the central and state governments subsidise higher education even for those students who spend more on private tuition and pocket money than their college fees."
He said the higher and professional education must remain accessible and affordable to the poor and the needy, primarily through "merit-cum-means scholarships".
"The scope of educational loans also needs to be vastly expanded. But if we cannot make the rich pay fair value for education, how can we make it widely available to the poor?" he said, adding that the fees in non-professional streams of higher education was "very low".
Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for a new UGC complex, while Union Human Resource Development Minister M M Joshi activated the "UGC Infonet", an internet-based networking of Indian universities.
Joshi said the UGC Infonet would be one of the biggest national networks exclusively dedicated for education by bringing all universities and colleges funded by UGC under a single information domain.
He announced that the Department of Science was preparing to launch an educational satellite on behalf of the HRD ministry to provide distance education and training to students and teachers.
The HRD minister also elaborated on a multi-pronged approach to focus on the 10+2 students, for an integrated five-year programme relating to imparting of education in specialised fields like atomic energy, space, biotechnology, energy, oil exploration, and communication.
The minister said some universities and colleges for undergraduate courses on these lines needs to be identified and some national level institutions need to be instituted in collaboration with research establishments like the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Indian Space Research Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Stating that there were 8.8 million students currently in the formal and non-formal systems of education, which, he said, will grow to 14 million by 2007-08.
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