The Union government was making efforts for building consensus on every issue that concerned education, Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari said on Monday.
Emphasising the need for consensus among the stakeholders to carry out education reforms, she regretted that there was no consensus on common entrance examination for professional courses.
She was addressing a plenary session of the 98th Indian Science Congress at Kattankulathur near here.
ADVERTISEMENT
Seeking cooperation from the State governments, Ms. Purandeswari said that when the Union government wanted to introduce the system of continuous and comprehensive evaluation of students in schools, the States suggested that the system be experimented first in schools coming under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
But, of the total 12 lakh schools in the country, only 11,000 were affiliated to the CBSE.
The Minister wondered why a nationwide core curriculum could not be implemented in Mathematics and Science, though she could understand the problems in having core curriculum in subjects such as Social Science.
ADVERTISEMENT
Calling for a partnership with the private sector, she said the sector accounted for 85 per cent of institutions in technical education. It was because of this factor that the Union government devised a scheme for establishing Central universities under public-private partnership.