PM calls for investment, reforms in education system

PUNE: Asserting that the country's education system urgently required investment and reforms, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the XI Five-Year Plan would be dubbed the National Education Plan.

"Our education system is in urgent need of both investment and reform at every level of the learning pyramid. We have launched a five-year plan that we have dubbed as the National Education Plan because of the public investment we are making in it," Singh said.

Singh was inaugurating the Van Vihar Biodiversity Park & Reserve at Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI) Campus, here.

"We need a modern education system for the 21st century that would prepare our children for the challenges of the future and not make them prisoners of the past," he said, adding "we need a system that is both compassionate and demanding."

"No child should ever feel left out for no fault of his or her. No child should nurse a grievance that his creativity has been suppressed. No child should ever feel compelled to do things that she or he may not be best equipped to do," Singh said.

Stressing the country needed a humane education system, Singh said there was also a need for a creative and forward-looking system.