Voicing serious concern over high dropout rates in schools, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said he favoured urgent reforms in curricula, examination system and development of text books.
"I must admit that the dropout rate in our school system continues to be a cause of serious concern and we have to make determined efforts to reduce it significantly," Singh said addressing the national award winning teachers at his residence in New Delhi.
Though as a result of various interventions, the number of out-of-school children had come down substantially, it was "still much too high" and determined efforts needed to be made to reduce it further, the PM said.
Observing that interventions needed to be designed to address the problems of low learner's achievements and poor classroom transactions, Singh said "there is an urgent need to initiate reforms in curricula, examination systems and development of textbooks in the light of the national curriculum framework of 2005".
The Mid-Day Meal Scheme has been expanded upto class eight and about 14 crore children, particularly those belonging to poorer sections, were benefiting from this ambitious nutritional programme, the prime minister said.
A new programme called Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan was being launched to provide enhanced access to secondary education, he said. Singh said investment in the education sector, specially in the areas of school education, has increased manifold in the last four years and the 11th Plan can be described as "an education plan".
