In an attempt to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education to 21% by the end of the 12th Plan period from the current 13.5%, the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) is formulating an action plan to achieve this target. It will discuss the matter in an internal meeting on Tuesday.
Raising the GER would entail an additional enrollment of over 26 million in higher education and almost 1 million school teachers by 2020. ?Thus, a concerted strategy to retain best talents in universities for faculty positions and preparing secondary teachers needs to be formulated. It would also require changes in strategies relating to open learning and technology enabled learning,? said a ministry note.
For faculty attraction and retention, the ministry is mulling Human Resource Planning and Management (HRPM) centres at the university level to assess teacher requirement and plan their professional growth research and faculty development programmes such as seminars, training, workshops, incentive and award schemes.
Besides faculty development, the meeting ? which will happen at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati ? will also discuss vocationalisation through short and medium-term training to achieve 50% enrolment in vocational education sector of higher education by 2020. This is so because even after achieving a GER of 30%, there would be 150 million or more youth who would require vocational education, the ministry says.
Encouragement to private investment is next on the agenda with substantial role of private sector at diploma and degree programmes. On the research and innovation front, the government may look at Sector Innovation Councils that would provide platforms for innovation right from school to higher education and would be developed alongwith at least 50 centres of innovation in different institutions of higher learning.
In fact, the note asks for appropriate amendments in the Copyright Law to foster creativity and to keep it in harmony with the features of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Also on the agenda of Tuesday’s meeting is the much ignored local languages along with book promotion and reading habits.
