Karnataka   

Educationalists oppose Karnataka move

Special Correspondent

"SIEMAT in private partnership in education dangerous"

Bangalore: The proposal to set up the State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT) in Karnataka in partnership with Azim Premji Foundation has been opposed by several educationalists and intellectuals, including Jnanpith Award winner U.R. Ananthamurthy and the former Planning Commission member L.C. Jain.

They termed it a "dangerous" sign of the Government relinquishing the core responsibility of policy framing in the area of education in the name of public-private partnership.

Mr. Jain told presspersons that education was a constitutional commitment involving every child's future and this obligation of the State could not be minimised. He called upon the people to be "absolutely vigilant" about this fundamental right.

"Education is the only weapon the weak have," he said. The Government should place all facts on what necessitated formation of this body in private partnership before the people and reconsider the idea before going any further, he said and added that there was a limit to the extent to which public-private partnership could work. "Can the Army be handed over to a private party?" he asked.

Mr. Ananthamurthy said the formation of this body went against the spirit of decentralisation.

He demanded to know if there was a need to form such a body while there were School Development Monitoring Committees at the gram panchayat level to manage schools and there were several State-run bodies working in the area of research.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Educationalists oppose Karnataka move
Passengers smash Air Deccan counter
Feeling the heat
Young achievers
Briefly

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu