Education should be child centric, says Kapil Sibal

NEW DELHI: Rooting for reforms in education system, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said reforms need to be child centric so that children can pursue their own dreams and aspirations.
Referring to India's first mission to Mars, Sibal said: "When we talk about launching a satellite on to Mars, we have more than 220 million satellites in the country, our children and each satellite has its own trajectory. We should help them in finding their orbit and shine."

Sibal has previously held HRD and Science&Technology Ministries.

Speaking here on the occasion of the two-day CII global university-industry congress, the Minister said that education needs to concentrate on the child and not the curriculum. Its efforts should be to bring out the brilliance in the child.

He also propagated a 10-year vision to create a road map to facilitate reforms in education to ensure that India comes to the forefront of world's education scene.

Commenting on the plight of education, Sibal said that ironically, while, satellite (Mars Mission) is being guided, "many institutions under the AICTE, engineering institutions, are closing down in India.

"They are winding up because of lack of quality and a feeling among students that these institutions lack on individual structure and other things," he said.

He further said: "We have a level of excellence that we have achieved which is symbolised by the launch (Mars mission) and you have the lack of excellence that is staring us in the face and that is the irony of India."

He emphasised on the need to make education compatible to leverage technological advancements like cloud computing and low cost access devices.

Sibal advocated providing students with low-cost devices that can facilitate access to educational material and global information anytime, anywhere.

The Minister added that investment in education will suffer in absence of legislation saying it could create chaos and uncertainty. He called on academic institutions and industry to create enough pressure to bring about the required legislation for reforms in education.