"Education system failed to take into account spl learning needs"

Updated on: Monday, November 07, 2011

Voicing concern over lack of quality education in the country, Minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari said the basic drawback in today's education was that the education system itself failed to take into account the special learning needs of students.

Speaking at a valedictory function of the Silver Jubilee celebrations of city-based Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science here, she said "making quality education accessible is as important as the access to higher education".

"As per the rating of universities and colleges by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), a dominant majority of higher educational institutions can at best described as average of below average. This position is completely unacceptable in the back drop of globalised world", she said.

Turning to the quality of education, the minister said one basic drawback was that tens of thousands of students were penalised by an educational system that has "largely failed to taken into account their special learning needs".

"It is time we better understood the profile of students with learning difficulties...educators and psychologists occasionally offer diagnoses of dyslexia or other learning disability, but seldom is a learning plan offered to students or the parent that meets students' basic requirements", she said.

Observing that an undue pressure on the student could adversely affect his capacity to learn as well as his ability to take pressure in academic work, Purandeswari said educators should not forget that education "should and must be joyous and not onerous".

On the role of private sector in the field of education, Purandeswari said that though the Government has considerably increased the spending on higher education, there was a need to adopt innovative and flexible methods of leveraging the financial, managerial and teaching resources in the private sector.

She said it was imperative that a regulatory frame work was put in place so that there was no commercialisation of education and also there is effective prevention of racketeering and exploitation in this regard.

"Subject to this, we have no inhibition to allow private players to function in the country with a reasonable degree of autonomy and freedom for providing quality education", she added.

"Education system failed to take into account spl learning needs"

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