Govt to set up national commission for higher education

Coimbatore, Aug 11 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu government is contemplating setting up of a national commission to bring all forms of higher education under one umbrella, Minister of State for Statistics and Programmes Implementation G K Vasan said today.

Speaking at a convocation ceremony at Karunya Institute of Technology here, he said the present UPA government was taking steps to promote education and literacy throughout the country.

The 'Sarva Shiksha Abhayan', the mid-day meal scheme and the provision of compulsory elementary education had been integrated into the twenty-point programme being implemented by his Ministry to achieve the target of providing education for all, he said.

With the implementation of these schemes, the number of drop-outs had come down from 4.4 crore in 2001 to 70 lakh in 2006.

The UGC had been given a budgetory allocation of Rs 1,269 crore during last year, an over 68 per cent increase from the previous year to focus on the higher education sector.

He said a total of six universities had been set up in the North-East region which was only two, earlier.

Establishment of new IITs and IIMs were on the anvil as part of the expansion plans. In addition to the seven IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan it had also been decided to establish the seventh IIM at Shillong.

He said that in addition to the existing Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Gwalior, Allahabad and Jabalpur the Centre had approved an IIIT (design and marketing) at Kancheepuram in the state. The proposals were also being considered for 20 IIITs, under Public-Private-Partnership mode.

UNI