JOIN US Disclosing this here on Monday, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal emphasised on the need for increasing students’ enrollment in open schools from 1.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
“A national policy will be evolved under which regular schools will embrace distance education. This will make distance schooling more acceptable,” Sibal said in his address at the annual meeting of National Consortium for Open Schooling.
The NCOS should work towards designing a framework of mission and vision to increase the acceptability of open schooling in the country, said Sibal appealing the states to implement the open schooling programme so that every child can get benefits of this programme. Of the 1 crore children in the age group of 14-18 years who currently pursue secondary education, 16 lakh are doing it through the open schooling system.
“This number (16 lakh) is not good enough. It should be increased to about 70-80 lakh by the end of the 11th Five Year plan and should be 1.5 cr by 2020,” he said. The major problem in distance education is its non-acceptability among the people as an effective and efficient alternative of the regular schooling system.