Chennai: Union minister for human resource development Smriti Irani said the Central government is currently working on national aptitude test for school students to enable them to understand their potential and aptitude in the subjects.
Listing out various initiatives in education sector by the union government
at a conclave in Chennai on Tuesday she said information from such a test
will arm parents not to push their wards into a particular segment after knowing they haven’t got the aptitude for the subject.
She also said the Central government is working with NCERT and other regulators, with other departments for conducting such a test.
On a question on ensuring the quality in higher education she said government has initiated national ranking framework for the educational institutions. So far 3,500 educational institutions from across the country have registered for national ranking frame work, which is world’s largest ever exercise for ranking by any organization, she said.
To a query related to rote learning she said it is a big challenge in school education. “We are hostages to our mark sheets and our grades. There was a
time when education was pursuit of excellence and knowledge. Now the education is pursuit of certificates and pursuit of marks as this system helps to get job,” she said.
“To overcome the language divide all data in higher education system will be translated into 22 scheduled Indian languages. It can be scaled up to 100 languages,” she said.
Responding to another query, she said the SC/ST quota will stay till the empowerment of the socially and economically disadvantaged groups is complete.
