Central Government releases 500 Cr out of 25000 Cr allocated for higher education in 12th plan

Government of India has planned to provide Rs 25,000 crore to state institutions under Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) during 12th Five Year Plan. The government has already provided Rs 500 crore under the scheme to states.

Dr M M Pallam Raju, Union Minister for Human Resource Development said that the government has provided Rs 100 crore for the launch of National Mission on Teachers and Training in Annual Plan 2013-14.

It has been launched to lay down a roadmap to improve the quality of teachers and teaching for improving the educational delivery and learning outcomes in higher education institutions.

The Minister further added that a major new initiative is the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) of Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) which will be launched to provide financial assistance to State Institutions.

He informed that the total outlay for the scheme in the XII Plan is Rs. 25,000 crore of which a sum of Rs 500 crore has been provided in Annual Plan 2013-14.

On the issue of social imbalances in higher education system, the Minister said that National initiative will be launched for greater inclusion of socially disadvantaged sections of SCs, STs, Minorities, Backward classes, girls and inclusion of persons with disabilities in higher education will be accorded priority.

Since the launch of Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme on 1.1.2013, the Minister said that the Department of Higher Education has disbursed scholarships to 36060 students under ‘Universities / College Students’ and fellowship to 4971 students under ‘Fellowship Schemes of UGC’ and the amount has directly been transferred into the bank account of beneficiaries spread all over the country.

On the issue of elementary education the Minister said that thirteen states have asked for relaxation of guidelines in terms of qualification of teachers so that those states could have more number of teachers. He also expressed that untrained teachers in these states could be trained through distance education programme. There are 7.72lakh untrained teachers out of which 6 lakhs are being trained through this programme.

Regarding women’s education, he said that Sakshar Bharat Programme is being implemented to increase literacy level among women.