Will push for more stringent education body: HRD Minister

Q: This brings up the question of government schools versus private schools. Private schools accountable, people know the sort of quality that they are going to get at the end of the day. Government schools compulsory free education in most of the cases. It state run. What is the solution really to this because we were just discussing before the break about how government teachers are subcontracting their jobs and so on? It is also becoming a class issue because only a certain class of people are going to go to the private schools and a certain class of people left for no choice to go to the government schools.

Sibal: First of all I think that in the last couple of years there has been an improvement in the quality of government school education. Government teachers are now getting Rs 20,000 and the results in these government schools are much better than they would ever before and that's because we have decided that we will have to improve the quality of these government schools and I don't think there is a substitute and I don't want to think all education must be made private and I am dead against that. I think we need to improve the quality of government schools and we need public private partnership to be able to do that - to get those teachers, train them properly and make sure that students are educated properly. Private schools are few and far between and they are quality schools and with the Right to Education Bill, 25% of the intake in private schools is also going to be from the local area of the less privileged. So that also will give an element of inclusiveness in private education institutions but I think that we will have to through public private partnership will move forward.

Q: Something that the rest of the panel would also like comments from you on the foreign university issue as well as FDI?

Sibal: Let me give you an example. Take for example a municipal school, a municipal school say has a building which has two storey. We can have a private management come in and say, okay we will allow you to build two more. You have your private school at the other two. You charge your fees from the local area, you don't have to go anywhere else. Now from my area people will want to go to modern school but if you have a modern school, a smaller modern school in my area then that private entrepreneur can actually run the corporation school as well and give the same quality education to the through same teachers. So that's equity for you and quality.

Pawar: We had evidence of that. Actually in the last ten-year one area where in government schools the public private partnership model has worked is in IT education in rural India started off with Tamil Nadu and southern state, now most states are doing it and that model is working very well. The model works as follows that the IT education part is contracted out in a competitive way with a tender and companies compete and they have responsibilities to set up the schools, the room, to put the computers, to get a generator and give a certain outcome. So that little centre of excellence where the classes start on time because there is a pressure is becoming a little center of excellence, it is becoming a point of transformation. So there is good evidence. There are more than 25,000 schools. There are a few models but I think it is possible.

Sibal: It is different ballgame altogether - IT sector is one, a different ballgame to translate that into general school education.

Prakash: It is a vocational training area, it is an unregulated area. It is not part of the mainstream education.

Pawar: No it is part of the curriculum. The IT education I am just giving you an example that the CBSE curriculum to the books is taught and the exam is done by the CBSE. So that's an innovative method which has been improved.

Sibal: I can give another example. You can now create models and modules of content of education in the form of DVDs and train the teachers through those modules.

Singh: The issue of saying that there can be a multiplicity of models but open it up in this way that so long as the resource generated, whatever the surplus generated is not taken out of education, there should be full leeway to allow that to go into any nature of education and institutions. I think that's the point and as far as inclusion, take it from the perspective of the student or the parent. You want to deliver them as much choice as possible. So, if the choice is available from a government school, we must certainly get better and better government schools and under the right to education, free education would be available at least upto the elementary level. Then you have the charitable institutions and they have some other constraints but since religion based schools have some minority based schools have some limitations.     

Q: One comment from you as far as the FDI issue is concerned, because now that you don't have the Left to deal with, is it going to be easier for you to push it through?

Sibal: I have already made a statement that this is something that we are going to take forward.

Q: Can you give us the corner stones of your plan?

Sibal: Expansion, inclusiveness and excellence and more forward within that framework and once you talk about expansion and inclusiveness, it means opening up the sector, bringing equity into the sector and not diluting quality.

Q: What is the critical need of the hour to your mind?

Pawar: What the Minster has mentioned as a direction is exactly mentioned as a direction is exactly what every right thinking Indian is waiting for, so the direction is perfect and now what we are saying is that the demand supply and the quantitative gap is so large that we should make an enabling framework which lets a thousand flowers bloom so the government has to do a lot, philanthropists should be able to do what they want so to deliver learning, and we need to create space in the right levels wherever those levels are for profit to happen as well and let the customer decide and the customer will make a choice.

Singh: Huge effort on capacity building, quality improvement and I think every rupee spent on education doesn't matter who does, whether it's the private sector or the government or the charitable sector, we must be able to demonstrate that it is delivering value, value in the minds of student and for that, there are range of things that we must keep testing ourselves and see are we delivering that value or not.

Sibal: Every rupee you spend on a child gives you much better return.

Ved Prakash: The government has to show the willingness that they would want that money and private equities willing to come in the education ecosystem and every level must will to come.