PIB: HRD ANNUAL REPORT- 2006-07: AN OVERVIEW

At a time when nearly 40% of India’s population is in the age group of 
6-24 years and when education has been identified as the singular, most 
important element in the national developmental effort, the activities 
of the Ministry of Human Resource Development are of crucial importance. 
Policies, programmes and schemes of the Ministry, consequently, have 
been wrought keeping this in view. This Annual Report endeavours to 
present the highlights of what has been attempted in 2006- 2007, to take 
stock of the present stage of major programmes and schemes and to give 
some indication of our proposals for the future.

The National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986, as updated in 1992, 
envisages improvement and expansion of education in all sectors, 
elimination of disparities in access and laying greater access on 
improvement in the quality and relevance of education at all levels, 
including technical and professional education. It also emphasizes that 
education must play a positive and interventionist role in correcting 
social and regional imbalances, empowering women and in securing a 
rightful place for the disadvantaged, linguistic groups and minorities.

With the vigorous implementation of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and 
the cooked Mid Day Meal (MDM Scheme), the number of out of school 
children has come down to less than 5% of the total population in the 
age group of 6 to 14 years i.e. from 4.4 crores in 2001-02 to 70 lakhs 
in 2006.

The Mid Day Meal Scheme was revised in mid 2006. Under the revised 
scheme nutritional norms have been raised from the existing 300 calories 
and 8-12 grams of protein to minimum 450 calories and 12 grams of 
protein per child. To facilitate this, Central assistance towards 
cooking cost, has been raised from existing Rs. 1 to Rs.1.50 per child 
per school day with mandatory contribution of Re.0.50 per child by 
States, making the overall cost norm of Rs.2 per child per day. In the 
case of North-Eastern States, the sharing pattern is 90:10 between the 
Centre and States.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme, under which 1000 new schools 
have been approved in the year 2006, besides the 1180 approved earlier, 
provides residential education to girls predominantly belonging to the 
SC, ST, OBC and minority communities. Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs), and 
Jawahar NavodayaVidyalayas (JNVs) have been recognized as setting the 
standards for the secondary education in the country. 50 new KVs and 28 
new JNVs have been approved in 2006-07, in addition to the 919 existing 
KVs and 539 JNVs.

Following the decision of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) 
in July 2005, two Standing Committees have been set up, on “Literacy and 
Adult Education” under the Chairmanship of Prof. Basudeb Barman, MP and 
on “Inclusive Education for Children and Youth with Special Needs” under 
the Chairmanship of Shri Vasant Purake, Minister of School Education, 
Government of Maharashtra.

In the field of adult education and literacy, out of 600 districts in 
the country 597 have since been covered under various programmes – 101 
under total literacy campaigns, 171 under post literacy programme and 
325 under continuing education programme. About 120.39 million persons 
have been covered under literacy programmes as on 31.3.2006. About 60% 
of the beneficiaries are women while 22% and 12% belong to Scheduled 
Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively.

Access to education is of utmost importance for educational advancement 
of disadvantaged sections. The Central Educational Institutions 
(Reservation in Admission) Act has, therefore, been enacted and has been 
notified in January, 2007 in pursuance of the 93rd Amendment to the 
Constitution of India, to provide statutory reservations to SCs, STs and 
OBCs in Central Educational Institutions. Necessary resources have been 
provided to the Central Educational Institutions, to augment their 
intake capacity by 54% in a maximum staggered period of three years in 
accordance with the Act, ensuring that reservations would not lead to 
any reduction in the seats as were available to unreserved categories 
before the coming into force of this Enactment.

The University Grants Commission had been given a Plan Budget of Rs.1269 
crore in 2006-07, which was a substantial increase of over 68% over 
2005-06 allocations, enabling increased assistance to Universities in 
general and the Central Universities in the North East in particular.

Four new Central Universities have been created during 2006 through Acts 
of Parliament. Arunachal Pradesh (Rajiv Gandhi National University) and 
Tripura University have been converted from State Universities into 
Central Universities, while a new University of Sikkim has been created. 
The Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages is being 
converted into a Central University. Now all States in the North East 
have a Central University each. A total of six Central Universities have 
been created (including the Allahabad University and Manipur University 
which were created by converting the existing State Universities) since 
2004.

The seven IITs and six IIMs have served the country extremely well and 
have done us proud. It is now proposed to establish 3 new IITs in the 
states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. It has also been decided 
to establish a 7th IIM at Shillong in the North East. Two new Schools of 
Planning and Architecture are also proposed to be started at Vijayawada 
and Bhopal. In addition to the existing Indian Institute of Information 
Technology at Gwalior, Allahabad and Jabalpur under the Government of 
India, a new IIIT (Design and Manufacturing) has been approved to be 
established at Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. Proposals have been submitted 
to the Planning Commission for starting 20 new IIITs so as to cover each 
major State. Planning Commission has suggested that these could be 
considered under the Public-Private Participation mode.

Erstwhile Regional Engineering Colleges/Government Engineering Colleges 
have been converted into National Institutes of Technology (NITs) with 
changes in their governance structure. There are 20 NITs at present. In 
order to bring all of them under umbrella legislation, the NIT Bill had 
been introduced in Parliament.

In order to build scientific research institutions of the highest 
standards in which teaching and research at the under-graduate and 
post-graduate levels will be undertaken in an integrated manner, two 
Indian Institutes of Scientific Education and Research (IISERs) have 
been set up at Kolkata and Pune. A third IISER is being set up at Mohali 
(Punjab) and two more have been proposed at Bhopal and 
Thiruvanathapuram. It is hoped that over a period of time, IISERs will 
attain the eminence of IISc, Bangalore and put India in the forefront of 
scientific research in the world.

There is an urgent need to revamp Polytechnic education in the country. 
The annual intake in polytechnics is approximately 50% of the intake in 
the degree level engineering institutions, though this ratio should be 
many more times the other way around. An in-principle approval has been 
obtained from the Planning Commission to start 54 new polytechnics in 
the districts without any polytechnics at present. Also there is a 
proposal to strengthen the existing polytechnics in the Special 
Identified Districts (SID).

“Sakshat,” a free one-stop portal for education has been launched by His 
Excellency, the President of India in October 2006, to address education 
and learning needs of students, scholars, teachers and lifelong 
learners. There has been a very good response to the “Talk to your 
Teacher” facility even upto 11 PM in the night which has been started 
since 26th January 2007, to clarify the doubts of the students who are 
preparing for their Board Examinations.

Access to education through the Open and Distance Learning system is 
expanding rapidly. The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) 
now has a cumulative enrollment of about 15 lakh. The University 
introduced 16 new programmes during 2006-07. The Distance Education 
Council (DEC), an authority of IGNOU, is coordinating the activities of 
13 State Open Universities and 119 Institutes of Correspondence Courses 
in conventional universities. It is proposed to give independent status 
to this Council. National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has 
registered 14 lakh learners since inception.

India has been accorded the Guest of Honour Presentation (GHP) status at 
the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF), Germany, held in October 
2006. The Fair, largest of its kind in the world and held annually in 
Frankfurt partners with one country or region for a special 
presentation. India has become the only country to be chosen for this 
honour twice, the earlier occasion being in 1986. The FBF gave a lot of 
visibility to India with the Indian pavilion showcasing nearly 200 
publishers and 75 authors from the country, as also giving an 
opportunity to the world at large to discover and debate different 
aspects of the a vibrant, dynamic and contemporary India.

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HB/SB