New Delhi, Jul 14 : State Governments were urged today to come forward to implement the Right of children to Free and Compulsory Education Act ''with full vigour.'' The appeal was made by Minister of State for Human Resource Development D Purandeswari while addressing an All India Editors Conference on Social and Infrastructure Issues at Guwahati. Excerpts of her presentation were made available in New Delhi.
The law which took effect from April 1 entitles India's 6-to-14-year-olds to free and compulsory education at public cost but authorities say implementation may take up to three years.
She said Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India's flagship programme to universalise elementary education, would be dovetailed into the RTE.
An outlay of Rs 1767.59 crore has been approved for SSA in the North-Eastern region, she said.
On higher education, the Minister spoke of plans to raise the country's Gross Enrolment Ratio from 12.4 per cent to 30 per cent by 2020 in a bid to tap the demographic dividend.
She said 374 new degree colleges would be established across India-- one in each district with relatively low GER-- including 44 in the NE.
As many as six National Institutes of Technology are proposed to be opened during the XI Five Year Plan in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim, she said.
Also on the cards for the NE were two National Institutes of Information Technology.