In his thought-stimulating article “The four A’s of education” (March 11), Arvind Singhal underscores the enormity of knowledge gap in India, compared to its close competitor China. It is so high that the government alone cannot bridge it in a short time. The responsibility will have to be shared by private organisations. Given the need for public-private partnership in education, proposed measures like education tribunals will half-serve the purpose as they will regulate the private institutions, and will provide no stimulus to create them.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal should consider setting up an education promotion body, or vertically integrating the functions of the projected tribunals to include the task of encouraging and rewarding the organisations that run their temples of learning in tune with the norms of transparent admission, requisite infrastructure, updated curriculum and appropriate teaching technology to be laid down for the purpose.
Attractive incentives for treating education as a cause and not a business entity and effective punitive measures for defaulters should be twin pivots of the system.
Y G Chouksey, Pune