New Delhi, Jan 11 (IANS) Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday announced that there would be a vast change in education policy making of the government in 2010.
“You will see a paradigm shift in education policies. It will be an epochal year,” he said.

Describing the year 2010 as very important for his ministry, Sibal said that researchers and faculty would be given a stake in the system to boost higher education and research which are vital for a nation’s development.

Releasing the book “Engineering Education in India” authored by Prof. Rangan Banerjee and Vinayak P. Muley of IIT-Bombay at Observer Research Foundation, a public policy think tank headquartered in Delhi, the minister noted that while India and China were almost at the same level nearly 15 years back, China has now surged much ahead of India.

“China could do it because of its national effort. But we have not done that. And the result is we are much behind China now,” the minister said.

Underlining the important role of private players in the development of education in the US as in the case of Stanford University and Harvard University, Sibal said the government would create “an appropriate environment” to attract public private partnership (PPP) and private players to education sector.

The minister agreed with author Banerjee that the only way to boost higher education and research is through joint efforts by the academic-industry-government tie-ups.

Sibal said India needs to raise its strength of PhD scholars from a mere 1,000 per year to at least 23,000 to catch up with China and other countries. “We have a very long way to go,” he said.