6,000 school to be run on PPP mode soon: Purandeswari

The Centre will soon announce guidelines for promoting schools and institutions of learning under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

The Planning Commission, entrusted with the task of finalising norms for PPP mode projects in education, has almost finalised the plan and “6,000 model schools to be run on the PPP mode are on the anvil,” Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari said.

Participating in a roundtable of CEOs organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Wednesday, Ms. Purandeswari said the government was coming out with the “Rashtriya Saaksharta Kosh” (national literacy fund), the proceeds of which could be used to give performance-based rewards to literacy achievers. The biggest challenge the government was facing was to motivate the 7 million volunteer teachers to take up the gigantic task of teaching 70 million learners, she said.

There was a strong opinion that volunteers should not be paid any honorarium or cash incentives, but volunteers on their part do expect some sort of incentive for their contribution to the cause. “There is no readymade solution to this predicament,” she said, adding that the private sector could contribute to the fund, which could be utilised to provide incentives to the volunteers.

Unlimited scope

National Literacy Mission Director-General Jagmohan Singh Raju said there was unlimited scope for industry to contribute to the sector through their products and management practices, as the government faced the toughest challenge of reaching out to 7 crore people with no formal structure in place.