The Union Minister for Human Resource Development Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi addressing the Commonwealth Education Ministers' Conference at Edinburgh on October 29, 2003. 
(Picture Courtesy : Press Information Bureau)

Speaking about strengthening of education of minorities, the Country Paper notes that education forms an important component to ensure equality and social justice to the minorities as guaranteed in the Constitution. Under the Area Intensive Programme for Educationally Backward Minorities, the Indian government provides 100 per cent financial assistance for their education. The programme currently covers over 325 community development blocks spread across 15 states and two union territories. In the Tenth Plan, two schemes of Area Intensive Programmes for these minorities are envisaged and modernisation of Madarasas will be merged with it for focussed attention. The flagship programme "Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan" launched in 2000, aims at completion of five years of primary education to all children by 2007; completion of eight years of education to all children by 2010; provision of elementary quality education by 2010; bridging the gender and social gaps at the primary stage by 2007, elementary stage by 2010 and universal retention by 2010. To achieve these objectives, highest priority has been given in the Tenth Plan for the development of Education. The Minister also chaired a session on Universal Primary Education and promised other developing commonwealth countries expertise and human resources for achieving total Universal Primary Education. Shri S.C. Tripathi, Secretary Education, Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chairman UGC, Prof. P. Ramachandra Rao, Vice-Chancellor, BHU, Shri S.P. Gaur, Jt. Secretary and Shri Alok Tandon were the other members of the Indian delegation.  

    rof. Murli Manohar Joshi led
        the Indian delegation to the
15th Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers (15 ccem) held at Edinburgh, UK from 27th to 30th October 2003. The theme of the Conference which is being held once in three years was "Closing the gap : Access, Inclusion, Achievement". Presenting the Country Paper at the Conference, Prof. Joshi called upon the Commonwealth Nations to evolve a joint strategy for achieving gender parity in basic education. Empowerment of women is the most critical pre-condition for participation of the girls and women in education in the Commonwealth community. The Minister said that taking this into consideration, India adopted the National Policy on Empowerment of Women in 2001 to effectively address gender disparity, especially in education. A host of practice initiatives have been launched over the years to close the gap in gender disparity in literacy. For this , special incentives are being provided to ensure girls’ participation in basic education. These have resulted in a considerable drop in

gender disparity in education over the years.
In the last decade female literacy increased by 14.8 per cent, from 39.3 to 54.16 per cent, higher than the increase in male literacy rate. Progress in gender equity and women’s empowerment is also visible, as about 60 per cent of the participants and beneficiaries are women. Fifteen years of free education upto the graduation level is provided to the girls. The early childhood care and education programme has been further strengthened to enable them to attend school. The Mahila Samakhaya Programme of India (awareness creation) bagged the Noma Literacy prize of UNESCO for 2001.
The Paper points out that the future challenges include, most importantly - reaching out to children in difficult circumstances. These children do not participate in schooling due to a variety of reasons, both economic and social. A key strategy for achieving the goal of "Education for All", is to provide an alternative system of education to those children belonging to deprived and disadvantaged sections of the society.