Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal plans to come out with a national vocational educational framework within one year.
He said the proposed framework would empower those students who do not want to become doctors, engineers or IT professionals.
The Union HRD minister was addressing the Higher Education Conclave 2010, organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce, in Kolkata today.
"From class VIII onwards, the child can take up various vocation al courses, like carpentry, para-medical etc along with their CBSE curriculum till class XII and they will be provided certificates based on their works like four levels till class XII and six levels after class XII," said the minister.
Stressing on the need for private sector participation in higher education, Sibal said that a national authority for accreditation should be set up and this authority will set certain standards like NAAC has come up.
Another legislation will be brought to curb malpractices in higher education. "Some private institutions are without infrastructure and faculties. They will be exposed in the new system. Every institution should have a website providing information about infrastructure and faculty, along with profiles, degrees, and courses. Differnces will constitute educational malpractices," he said.
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The minister said that out 220 million people in the 18-24 age group, 14 million out of 220 million people aregoing to colleges which is only 12.4 per cent of the total population.
The global average is 23 per cent. "This is the reason of difference between the developed and developing world. And this shows that there is something wrong with our education system," he said.
Sibal stressed the need for more research and development activities in the country and said, "Research is the difference between the developed and developing world".
He cited the figures of some developed countries to drive home the point. In the Scandenevian countries, there are around 6000 persons in R&D for every million people. In the US, this figure is 4700 whereas in India, it stands at 156.
"If we ensure elementary education to every child, the drop out rate from classes 1 to 10 which is 60 per cent for male and 63 per cent for female can be cropped," he said. The minister plans to increase the gross enrollment ratio to 30 percent from the present 12.4 per cent which will translate into 40 million college-going students.
"We will need 800 more universities from the present 504 and 40,000 more colleges from the present 26,000," he said.
He said there should be more industry-institute partnership for increasing national growth.
"The kind of industry participation seen today has not been seen in the history, like Wipro and Infosys are working for providing the engineering colleges with faculties. The synergy between academic institutions and industry has not yet taken place.
Economy can only be sustained by people who work and India is in a position to provide work force both in India and outside," he said.
Also present on the occasion were, Harshvardhan Neotia, MD, Ambuja Realty; Saugata Banerjee, director, Usha Martin Education and Solutions; Vishambhar Saran, past president ICC among others.