Sibal favours 'flexibility' in education system

NEW DELHI: Asserting that "flexibility" should be at the heart of reforms in education sector, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today favoured removing boundaries between science, arts and commerce disciplines to enable children pick the subjects of their choice.
"Children must have the choice at any stage of their life to move from one discipline to another. The flexibility of the education system must be at the heart of of education reforms. Why can't a child take music and maths, commerce and history or geography and physics," he said.

Sibal felt that the time has come when "we must destroy the disciplines we talk about -- commerce, arts and science. Discipline of knowledge is only acquisition of knowledge and not that you are fit for science so you are in science... you are in arts you are fit for arts."

This change can only happen when people stop thinking in "silos", he said addressing at a global education meet here.

The minister also batted for bringing uniformity among the universities in academics and quality for easy student migration with steps like introduction of "semester system".

The government, he said, is also committed to raise the gross enrollment ratio in the country from 15 to 30 per cent by 2020 so as to create that critical mass of students to move into the university system and gainfully contribute to the future of the country.