Govt moots proposal to enhance educational standards

New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) Government today mooted aproposal for an "institutional framework" to strengthenCentre-state collaboration in raising educational standardsunder the RTE regime with the involvement of key educationregulators.

Such a framework would include educational bodies likeNCERT, State Councils of Educational Research and Trainings(SCERT), CBSE, Council of Boards of School Education in India(COBSE) and National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

The proposal was mooted by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal atthe meeting of central and state education regulatory bodieswith an aim to ensure "constant coordination, continuous flowof information and dialogues between them", said an HRDMinistry official.

Sibal also said that the institutional mechanismbetween NCERT and SCERTs should also work towards developingquestion banks which could be used by states for their TeacherEligibility Test.

He said that while the NCTE is developing thestandards and benchmarks for the eligibility test, StateGovernments would be responsible for administering these testsand ensure that these tests conform to high standards.

During the meeting, Sibal also underlined that theeffort of the educational administrators and curriculumdevelopers should be to maximise standards rather thansettling for mediocre standards.

The NCERT in its presentation at the meeting said theGovernment was proposing to set up a 24 hour Channel forteaching through ICT.

The NCERT would be the nodal agency for this channeland the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and theIndira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) would be thecollaborating agencies.

The target audience for this channel would be schoolstudents in the 5-18 years age group, open education studentsand neo-adult literates.

Talking about the proposed National VocationalQualification Framework, Sibal said the Government has begun aseries of consultations with different industry groups tofacilitate development of vocational curriculum as demanded bythe needs/job requirements of these industry groups.

The state education ministers are also expected tomeet in this regard here this week.