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Joshi moots cess on education
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has suggested levying of an education cess besides taking a number of steps to revive the teaching of fundamental sciences and improve the literacy rate in the country.

These observations were made by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, during an interaction programme with members of the editorial staff of The Tribune group of newspapers here this morning.

Earlier on arrival, Dr Joshi was received by Mr Hari Jaisingh, Editor, The Tribune, who also presented him a set of special publications of The Tribune Trust.

Dr Joshi said though a substantial increase in the budgetary allocation for human resource development may not be feasible, but his ministry has suggested levying a cess on education. “People who buy cars or go to hotels and eat there can be asked to pay a little extra for the education of masses,” he said.

Among various steps being taken by the government, he said by year 2010 the target of complete elementary education would be achieved taking the country’s literacy rate to 75 per cent which at present was 62 per cent and expected to touch 64 per cent by the end of current calendar year.

By the end of year 2000, India would have the largest number of literate people, 64 crores. “Besides, we are making every effort to ensure that every child up to the age of six must have some sort of schooling by the end of the year. The ministry has also decided to integrate all literacy and elementary education schemes into one.

“The main problem areas,” he said, were “in the field of women, minorities and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It has been decided to provide free education to all girls up to the graduation level. Besides, we are planning to open 100 schools for Scheduled Caste girls alone throughout the country.”

Talking about the curricula for school children, Dr Joshi said the government was clear not only to reduce the size of the bag of school children but also to reorient the curriculum. “We plan to introduce fundamental duties and moral education as part of the school curriculum. Moral education will be based on anecdotes and stories from all religions. The fundamental duties as mentioned in Article 51-A would be printed in all books of the NCERT.”

The minister said more emphasis would be laid on the latest developments in the field of information technology. Besides, it was proposed to include India’s contribution to world civilisation, say in mathematics, sciences. It was India which gave the world zero. Computers are based on zero foundation. Similarly, the contribution of Aryabhat and other great Indian thinkers need to be highlighted.”

Admitting that of fundamental sciences had not attracted many, Dr Joshi said he himself was feeling concerned as without the basic or fundamental sciences, technological advancement was not possible. The situation was so bad in certain universities, the Department of Physics was on the verge of closure. “The fundamental sciences are in a sorry state of affairs. We have worked out a new scheme to revive them. We have decided that 50 school students from each of the state education boards should be picked and assigned various national science laboratories for two days each. The top 5 per cent of these students will be taken to two laboratories each. This would help in apprising the young students of the actual work and making them show interest. Besides, they would be able to interact with some of the top scientists in these laboratories.”

The government has also decided to double the amount of stipends and fellowships for sciences. It was also planning to prevent brain drain and retain the best brains.

The Department of Space and Science and Technology was also coming out with similar schemes, including Kishore Vigayan Scheme. Besides efforts were afoot to integrate industry, science and technology and infotech.

Dr Joshi said the government was aware of the problems posed by multiplicity of entrance tests for admission to technical institutions. “We propose to introduce one uniform entrance test throughout the country. But some states have not responded to our proposal so far. The multiplicity of these tests pose series of problems, including clash of dates, long distance for taking tests, and heavy expenditure.

Asked about growing number of vacancies in institutions like Punjab Engineering College, which is directly under the control of the union government, he said he was not aware of the problem. The minister agreed that quality of education had to improve. The pay scales of teachers had substantially been increased.

Last year 29 of the those selected in civil services were either technocrats, doctors and IIT passouts, showing that top brains were going to civil services. He suggested regular exchange programmes for professionals, saying that engineers, journalists, scientists and doctors should go to universities under the proposed exchange programmes so that others could benefit from their learning and expertise.