Bridge quality gap between public, pvt schools, says PM

New Delhi, May 17 (UNI) Pointing out that the standard of education in public school system left much to be desired as compared to private schools, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today called for bridging this quality gap to make the efforts for the spread of education meaningful.

Dr Singh also announced that the government will devise focused plans for areas dominated by economically and backward Muslims and stressed that state specific strategies and interventions were needed to improve the lot of the community.

The Prime Minister was delivering the inaugural address at the two-day international conference on 'Empowerment of SCs, STs and Minorities'.

''A high quality public schooling system is, in the final analysis, the only guaranter of equality of opportunity to all groups, irrespective of their social and economic conditions,'' he said.

Bridging the quality gap between the private and public school system was a must to ensure that education does not turn out to be the preserve of the privileged classes only, he added.

Dr Singh said the first requisite for improving the standard of public schools was to pay greater attention to teacher training and attending to ''unique problems of first generation learners.'' He also underlined the importance of improving the teaching of science and mathematics in schools ''as numeracy and scietific knowledge are key to success in the knowledge economy.'' Coming to Muslims' backwardness, the Prime Minister said the Sachar Committee had clearly brought out that they also lagged behind in the field of education like Dalits and other backward classes. But, he added that educational deprivations among minorities differed from state to state, and some states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had a much better track record, so state-specific strategies and interventions were needed.

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