NEW DELHI - As the country embarked upon setting up new IITs, IIMs and Central universities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said attracting best talents for these premier institutions remains a problem.

“We must find ways of attracting the best talents as faculty in our premier institutions. We today face difficulty in finding top level professors and lecturers in the newly created IITs, IISERs and other such institutions,” he said.

Addressing the National Education Day function here Nov 11to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first Education Minister, Manmohan Singh said, “this state of affairs cannot be allowed to prevail”.

The government has started major expansion of higher education by opening eight new IITs and 15 Central universities.

It has also been decided to set up six IIMs, 10 NITs, 20 IIITs and 6,000 model schools during the 11th Plan (2007-12).

Observing that efforts should be made to find ways to improve the quality of teachers, the Prime Minister asked the academics and planners to address this problem of deficiency in the quality of teaching in schools, colleges and universities.

Manmohan Singh also said the country needed an additional one million teachers to implement the Right To Education Act, which seeks to provide free and compulsory education in the 6-14 age group.

Realization of Right To Education depended not merely on expansion of the educational infrastructure but equally importantly on availability of trained teachers with commitment to the profession, Manmohan Singh said at the function attended by UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura.

The UNESCO chief said India was on track to get most students in schools and achieve Education For All, a target set by all countries to be achieved by 2015.

He said the enactment of Right To Education showed the political commitment of the government to ensure that education becomes a right of every child.

Manmohan Singh said while the outlay for higher education has been increased by ten times in the 11th Plan as compared to the previous plan, the government has launched a new literacy initiative ‘Saakshar Bharat’ to make 70 million people literate with focus on women’s literacy in the next five years.

The government has earmarked Rs 840,000 million for higher education in the 11th Plan period.

Noting that a Rs 50,000 million National Mission on Education through ICT has been launched recently, the Prime Minister said this will provide Internet connectivity to about 20,000 colleges and educational institutions.

PM also expressed India’s willingness to share with UNESCO the e-learning material prepared by the IITs under this Mission.

Emphasizing the importance of improving access to education as also ensuring equity and quality, Manmohan Singh said the government will provide quality education to every child in the country, especially those belonging to the under-privileged sections.

Improvement in quality at all levels was receiving increasing emphasis, he said adding in higher education this would be achieved through structural reforms on the basis of recommendations of National Knowledge Commission and the Yashpal Committee.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said the government wanted to increase the gross enrollment ratio in higher education from the present 12.4 per cent to 30 per cent by 2020.

The recently enacted Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 seeks to provide quality education to an estimated 160 million children who are presently out of school, Sibal said.                            (PTI)