UPA has taken education to new heights: Sonia

United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday emphasised how the Congress-led Union government was responsible for taking the standards in education to new heights in India.

On a two-day tour of her constituency Rae Bareli, Gandhi highlighted the UPA government's focus on education. She sought to impress upon all how the a budgetary provision of Rs. 2.25 lakh crore had been made to insure successful implementation of the Right to Education Act over the next five years.

"Our government was making every effort to provide every possible assistance to all state governments to ensure proper implementation of the Right to Education," she said while speaking at a foundation stone laying ceremony of a  sports complex for Navodaya Vidyalaya in Dalmau town.

She also pointed out, "Even for Uttar Pradesh our government has given around Rs. 7,000 crore towards education; and that was 75 per cent higher than last year's allocation."

In an obvious bid to substantiate her claims about the central government's generous contribution towards education, Gandhi said, "We have taken a number of steps for improving the secondary education in the country ; we have initiated setting up of a model school in every block of the country and 75 per cent of

the cost involved would be borne by the centre."

"The central government has already disbursed the budget for setting up 148 such schools in Uttar Pradesh," she pointed out,  adding, "Uttar Pradesh has benefited from the central government's schemes and projects aimed to improve education."

Expressing concern over the dropout rate in government schools, she said, "A large number of students are admitted in government schools, yet a considerable dropout rate continues to prevail. Even though we have provision for various scholarships, students from poor families were still not able to pursue their education properly, therefore much more still needs to be done in for them."

Stressing on the need of providing education in accordance with the modern times, she said, "Besides imparting formal education to children, there was also need to sensitise them towards the environment.  We should focus on developing overall personality of the students by making them participate in sports activities, besides inculcating moral values in them."

Calling upon public representatives, her partymen and NGOs to publicise welfare schemes of the government among the poor Sonia said, "We must all join hands to ensure that the fruits of different welfare schemes trickled down to the deserving target beneficiaries."