Lok Sabha Question No. 2650 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-03-12
Subject: Lack of Quality Education
Ministry: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: HARI BABU KAMBHAMPATI

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2650 TO BE ANSWERED ON 12-03-2018

## Lack of Quality Education

## 2650. DR. KAMBHAMPATI HARIBABU:

Will the Minister of HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- a) whether  the  Government  has  come  across  the  'Oxfam  Report',  which  reported  growing inequality in India and suggested that quality education is the best way to reverse this trend and if so, the details thereof;
- b) whether the Government is aware that such inequality exists in the country due to lack of quality education and if so, the details thereof; and
- c) the corrective measures proposed to be taken by the Government to weed out inequality in the absence of quality education?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

## (DR. SATYA PAL SINGH)

- (a) The  'Oxfam  Report'  has  reported  growing  inequality  in  India  and  has  suggested  that quality education is the best way to reverse this trend. However, Government was not associated with the report.
- (b)  &  (c):  Government  has  been  making  efforts  to  improve  quality  of  education  which  will bridge the inequality in society through following measures:-

The recruitment, service conditions and deployment of teachers are primarily in the domain of the  State  Governments/UT  Administrations.  However,  the  Central  Government  through  the flagship programmes of Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan (SSA) at elementary level provides assistance to the  State  Governments  and  UTs  for  additional  teachers  to  maintain  appropriate  Pupil  Teacher Ratio as per the prescribed norms for various levels of schooling. Under SSA, a total of 19.33 lakh  teacher  posts  have  been  sanctioned  to  ensure  the  pupil-teacher  ratio,  as  stipulated  in  the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

Further, the State Governments and UT Administrations are supported on several interventions under  SSA  to  improve  teaching  standards,  including  regular  in-  service  teachers'  training, induction training for newly recruited teachers, recruitment of additional teachers for improving pupil-teacher ratios, academic support for teachers through block and cluster resource centres, continuous  and  comprehensive  evaluation  system  to  equip  the  teacher  to  measure  pupil performance and provide remedial action wherever required, and teacher and school grants for development of appropriate teaching-learning materials, etc. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 specifies statutory duties and responsibilities of teachers and  lays  down  the  minimum  qualifications  for  a  person  to  be  eligible  for  appointment  as  a teacher  in  elementary  schools.  Further,  Central  Government  has  been  taking  up  the  issue  of redeployment of teachers with States/UTs in various forums and review meetings. The training provided to teachers is subject specific and need based.

The  training  modules  are  developed  by  the State  Council  of  Educational  Research  and Training (SCERT) in the State and the training is imparted through a cascade model of the State level Key Resource Persons training master trainers at district level who then train teachers at Block and Cluster level.

In order to focus on quality education, the Central rules to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory  Education  (RTE)  Act have  been  amended  to  include  reference  on  class-wise, subject-wise Learning Outcomes. The Learning Outcomes for each class in Languages (Hindi, English and Urdu), Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Science and Social Science up to the elementary stage have, accordingly, been finalized and shared with all States and UTs. These would  serve  as  a  guideline  for  State  and  UTs  to  ensure  that  all  children  acquire  appropriate learning  level.  Further,  a  National  Achievement  Survey  based  on  learning  outcomes  has  been conducted on 13th November, 2017 with a sample frame upto district level to enable states/UTs to identify gaps in learning outcomes at district level and design strategies to address those gaps. District reports are available along with learning gaps for each district.

The National  Council  for  Educational  Research  and  Training  (NCERT) has  developed  a framework for Performance Indicators for Elementary School Teachers (PINDICS) and shared with  the  states.    PINDICS  will  eventually  evolve  as  the  framework  for  effective  teacher performance  for  effective  monitoring  and  benchmarking  across  the  country.  Additionally,  for improving the quality of school education, the School Standards &amp; Evaluation framework, known as 'Shaala Siddhi' has been developed, to enable schools to evaluate their performance in a more focused and strategic manner and to facilitate them to make professional judgments for improvement.

Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat was launched in 2014 to ensure that  students of classes I & II are able to read with comprehension as well as basic numeracy skills.

Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan was launched in 2015 to motivate children of the age- group of 618 years in study of Science, Mathematics and technology

Under Rashtriya  Madhyamik  Shiksha  Abhiyan  (RMSA) scheme,  financial  assistance  is provided  to  the  States/UTs  for  opening  of  New  government  secondary  schools  alongwith  (i) Class Rooms, (ii) Integrated Science Laboratory, (iii) Library (iv) Art and Craft Room, (v) Toilet Blocks, (vi) Drinking Water Provisions, (vii) Head Master Room, (viii) Office Room. As part of strengthening of existing government secondary schools (i) Additional Class Rooms, (ii) Science Laboratory,  (iii)  Library,  (iv)  Art  and  Craft  Room,  (v)  Toilet  Blocks,  (vi)  Drinking  water provisions etc are funded under the programme. Further, there is provision of appointment of 1 Head Teacher and 5 Teachers for every new/upgraded secondary school and Additional teacher is  also  approved  as  per  Teacher-pupil  ratio   to  ensure  rationalisation  of  teaching  posts  as  per requirement of State Governments/UTs and various types of trainings including inservice/induction training for teachers as well as leadership training to school Heads, Training of Master Trainers, Training of Key Resource Persons, training of State Resource Groups (SRGs) are also being supported under RMSA Scheme to improve the quality of teaching-learning. The Scheme  also  supports  interventions  like  conducting  motivation  and  awareness  programmes, remedial teaching, self-defence training for girls, provision of separate toilets for girls and boys, organizing  Science  Fair/Exhibition  and  Talent  Search  at  district  level;  providing  Mathematics and Science kits at school level, exposure trips to institutions of higher learning etc. a number of ICT initiatives such as e-pathshala, NROER, Shaala Darpan, Shaala Siddhi, etc have also been taken for improving the quality of education.

The extant National Policy on Education (NPE) provides for a National System of Education which implies that up to a given level, all students, irrespective of caste, creed, location or sex, have  access  to  education  of  a  comparable  quality.  The  Government  is  committed  to  provide equitable  access  to  quality  education  to  all  sections  of  the  society.  Having  nearly  reached  the goals of universalizing elementary education, and making substantial gains in expanding access to  secondary  and  higher  education,  the  focus  is  on  improving  the  quality  of  education  at  all levels.  Several  initiatives  are  currently  being  undertaken  to  enhance  the  quality  of  education across the spectrum.

Presently, the Government is in the process of formulating a New Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the population's requirement with regard to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary  skills  and  knowledge  and  to  eliminate  the  shortage  of  manpower  in  science, technology, academics and industry. The Ministry had constituted a Committee for Evolution of the  New  Education  Policy  under  the  chairmanship  of  Late  Shri  T.S.R.  Subramanian,  former Cabinet  Secretary  to  the  Government  of  India.  The  Committee  submitted  its  report  to  the Ministry in the May 2016. After perusal of the report of the Committee and based on the reports of various consultations as well as views and comments received, the Ministry prepared 'Some inputs  for  the  draft  National  Education  Policy,  2016'.  Both  these  reports  have  been  treated  as inputs for education policy formulation.  The exercise of preparing a New Education Policy is still  ongoing  as  the  Government  has  recently  constituted  a  Committee  for  preparation  of  the Draft National Education Policy under the Chairmanship of Dr. K. Kasturirangan, which is due to submit its report by 31.03.2018.

As per the budget announcement, the Governmnet has also approved the scheme of providing Regulatory Architecture for setting up/ upgrading of 20 Institutions (10 from public sector & 10 from private sector) as world class teaching and research institutions known as 'Institutions of Eminence'. The Regulatory Architecture has been provided in the form of UGC (Declaration of Government Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017 for public Institutions and UGC  (Institutions  of  Eminence  Deemed  to  be  Universities)  Regulations,  2017  for  private

Institutions.  Under  the  scheme,  each  public  Institution  to  be  selected  as  ' Institution  of Eminence' will get financial assistance upto Rs.1000 crore over a period of 5 years.

The institutions will have freedom to choose their own path to become world class institutions. It is expected that the selected Institution will come up in top 500 of the world ranking in 10 years and in top 100 of the world ranking eventually overtime. To achieve the top world ranking, these institutions shall be provided with greater autonomy viz. to admit foreign students up to 30% of admitted students; to recruit foreign faculty upto 25% of faculty strength; to offer online courses upto  20%  of  its  programmes;  to  enter  into  academic  collaboration  with  top  500  in  the  world raking Institutions without permission of UGC; free to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction; flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree; complete flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus, etc.

The MHRD under its Technology enabled learning initiative of National Mission on Education through  Information  and  Communication  Technology  (NMEICT),  SWAYAM and SWAYAM PRABHA has  addressed  the  issue  of  quality,  access  and  equity  by  reaching  to  students  and learners in remotest corners of the country.

Under UGC, NME-ICT was awarded the Project 'Production of Courseware e-Content for Post Graduate  Subjects'  to  UGC  for  development  of  e-content  at  postgraduate  level.  A  dedicated portal (http://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/), to host the content, is available in open access.  There are at present 17715 e-text, 18608 video uploaded on this site.

SWAYAM/SWAYAM PRABHA provides an integrated platform and (https://swayam.gov.in/) portal  for  online  courses,  using  information  and  communication technology(ICT) in all higher education subjects to ensure that every students benefits from learning material through ICT. The SWAYAM PRABHA is a group of  32  DTH  channels  devoted  to  telecasting  of  high-quality educational programmes on 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite.

Under  National  Mission  on  Education  through  Information  and  Communication  Technology ( NMEICT )  scheme  initiated  the  National  Digital  Library  of  India  ( NDL  India )  project  to develop  a  framework  of  virtual  repository  of  learning  resources  with  a  single-window  search facility.    So  far,  1.5  Crore  e-books  and  documents,  content  in  English,  Hindi  and  some  other languages are available with 160 Content contributor, 30 lakh users and 9 thousand educational institutions from where users registered.

Technical  Education  Quality  Improvement  Programme  (TEQIP-III) is  a  Central  Sector Scheme, designed to improve the quality of the engineering education system in India with a cost of Rs. 2660 crore for three years from F.Y. 2017-18 to F.Y. 2019-20 in 19 Focus States/ Union Territory (UT).

Further, Government has established five Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs) fully funded by Central Govt. and twenty IIITs in PPP mode, at various locations in the country to impact quality education to the students. The admissions to these IIITs is based on all India level test namely IIT (JEE) to ensure quality education in IT related subjects, accessible to all the students without any discrimination.