Wednesday, February 8 2006 15:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Observing that a teacher is a pivot for success of education programmes, Human Resourse Development Minister Arjun Singh today (Feb 8 2006) said more focus should be on the reduction in drop out rates and improvement of quality in education.

Though recent surveys showed that nearly 93 per cent children in the age group of 6-14 years were in school, the challenge was to bring the remaining seven per cent into the schools, he said in a message to the first ever National Conference of Directors of SCERTs and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET)s here

Increased and urgent attention needed to be paid on the quality of learner achievement and on the capacity of teachers to provide holistic and inclusive education, teaching learning processes, curriculum and other related issues, Singh said.

Expressing satisfaction that there was an extensive network of more than 550 DIETs in the country, he said the Government was committed to provide continued support to these institutions to make them active catalysts in the teacher training.

Speaking at the Conference, B L Mungekar, Member, Planning Commission said the Government was committed to do everything possible for accommodating financial needs of the elementary and primary education in the coming budget.

Kumud Bansal, Secretary of Elementary Education and Literacy, said the two per cent education cess levied last year has given extra resources for strengthening the education sector and it would be endeavour of the Government to ensure optimum utilisation of resources made available.