The biggest challenge for implementation of various literacy programmes is incentives or monetary sops for the volunteers who are involved in the missions, according to D Purandeswari, Union minister of state for human resource development.
“Keeping in view the spirit of volunteerism, there is an opinion that volunteers should not be paid any honorarium or cash incentives. But the volunteers do expect some kind of incentives for their contribution to the cause,” she said, at a meeting with the CEOs of corporate houses and companies organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Wednesday.
Stating that the corporate houses need to come forward to fill the gap between the government and volunteers, Purandeswari said companies, under the corporate social responsibility initiatives, need to adopt a few villages and encourage them by offering incentives.
“The Cabinet had approved a proposal to set up a fund for literacy – Rashtriya Saaksharata Kosh. The fund proceeds will be utilised to give performance-based rewards to literate achievers,” she said, adding that once the fund was set up, the private sector would also come forward and contribute to it.
Earlier, in her earlier remarks, Shobana Kamineni, past chairman of CII-southern region and executive director of Apollo group of Hospitals, opined that public-private partnerships in the education sector could be an effective tool to attract the much-needed private sector participation into the higher education segment, without diluting the regulatory oversights of the government and other regulators.