PM's Promise On Education 'Giant Leap': Arjun

New Delhi, Aug 17 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement on making education affordable was reminiscent of India's ''giant leap'' in this sector in the 1950s, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said today.

In a statement, Singh referred to Dr Manmohan Singh's Independence Day remarks pertaining to the education sector, saying it's a ''magnificent gift.'' ''We are delighted that the wish-list of the Ministry... for expansion and strengthening of public institutions in education during the 11th Five Year Plan... would now be realised,'' the HRD Minister said.

This, he said, entailed new Indian Institutions of Technology, new Indian Institutions of Management, new Indian Institutions of Information Technology and new Central Universities, universalising secondary schooling, high quality schools, colleges and vocational institutions.

The HRD Minister noted that Dr Singh reiterated the United Progressive Alliance government's commitment to facilitating affordable access to educational opportunities.

''Indeed, not since the decade of the fifties' when our First Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru envisioned new institutions of learning has such a giant leap been proposed.'' He said while those ''who believe in the essentiality, nay compulsion, of higher public outlays in education should be reassured, the Prime Minister's generous announcement... is also an exciting challenge for our academic community and those responsible for academic administration to rise to the immense possibilities of guiding our youth to realise their true potential and attain even loftier heights in the global knowledge society.'' ''I am sure they would be up to it,'' the Minister said, promising that ''We in the Ministry of HRD have an onerous task to perform which we will do with single minded dedication." UNI