Offer Girls Free Education Upto PG: Kadiyam Srihari

Cabinet Advisory Board on Education (CABE) Chairman, and Telangana Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister Kadiyam Srihari today proposed that the Centre should offer free and intensive education to girls up to the post-graduation level.

Chairing a CABE meeting along with members who included Jharkhand Education Minister Niraja Yadav, Assam Education Minister Himantha Bishwa Sharma, and Central Human Resources Special Secretary Reena Roy and Member-Secretary Minakshi Garg along with other officials, Srihari discussed several issues related to providing education to girls up to the PG level and improving the existing educational facilities available in the country.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Srihari said that the board would submit an interim report to the Centre by January 16 and the full report by the end of January or the first week of February. He said that the CABE meeting had unanimously decided to make a string of recommendations to the Centre that included the setting up of special universities for women in each state of the country, starting Gurukul schools for girls on the lines of the SC and ST schools in Telangana, extending the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) education scheme up to the Intermediate level from the existing class VIII level, increasing the number of students in model schools to 200 from 100, and distributing health kits among school-going students to promote wellness and hygiene.

Stressing on the need to replicate the Telangana model of introducing residential degree colleges and Gurukuls for SC and ST girls across the nation, the Deputy CM said that such educational institutions in other states of the country would be the important building blocks of a prosperous new society since it would ensure several educated women at its helm.

CABE was constituted as an advisory board to make recommendations to the Centre on improving girl child education in the country, and has previously held three meetings in Guwahati, New Delhi and Bhubaneshwar. The next (fifth) meeting of the board was scheduled to be held in New Delhi on January 15 and 16.