Private participation in education can't be banned: Sibal

Updated on: Friday, April 01, 2011

Private participation in the education sector cannot be banned but it should be aimed at achieving societal and public goals, Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said.

"We cannot ban private participation but we must ensure that private participation is ultimately for the societal and public goal", Sibal, who is here to attend the annual convocation of Indian Institue of Management, told the media.
Noting that all educational institutions were a trust, he said all stakeholders should discharge their responsibilities as its members. That does not mean there should be no private participation in education.

"That (private participation) is different from privatisation, which I think is a very dirty word."

Sibal said government did not believe in privatisation of education. However, educational institutions have to serve a social purpose, he asserted.

Pointing out that 90 per cent of engineering colleges are in the private sector, he said government was trying to set the system right and serve a societal purpose by changing AICTE rules, make the system more transparent and accountable and making the institutions go through a self disclosure process.

Exuding confidence that India would achieve full literacy in 10 years, he cited the latest figures, showing a rise in literacy rate from 64.8 to 74 per cent in the last decade.

This will transform the way India works and give to the young generation opportunities they never had before, he said.

"There will be a lot of pressure on educational institutes, more particularly because there is transformation of society, he said. "We will need management solutions to
very complex problems", he said.

As education was becoming multi-disciplinary, management institutes could not function as stand alone bodies he said and suggested they interact with technology institutions, private and health and education sectors,agriculture and SMEs.

On affordable education,he said a proposal has been mooted for government guaranteeing educational loans. "We are very keen on affordability", he said.

"We are not a 14 trillion Dollar economy that we can give education free to everybody at this point in time. "We are ehancing scholarship, we are moving the finance ministry for student educational loans", he said.

Sibal said there would be priority lending as education has been declared an infrastructure sector. "We have a proposal which we have mooted with the Finance Ministry and Planning Commission of guaranteeing these loans by the government," he said.

The commission, he said supports the move. But much would depend on the finance minister being ready to take that risk.

Private participation in education can't be banned: Sibal

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