Sibal praises Bihar for spreading education

New Delhi -  Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal was all praises for the Bihar government Monday for its steps in the field of education.

Speaking after conferring an honorary Doctor of Literature degree to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the minister, however, said the number of teachers needed to be improved in Bihar.

"I recently visited Bihar and I was both heartened and disheartened. Heartened because of the measures taken by state government in the field of education. I saw scores of schools with hundreds of students in every class, and 60 percent of these were girls," Sibal said.

"People are realising how important girl's education is. But I was disheartened to see only one teacher for those students," he said.

The HRD minister said that technical advances like optical fibres will help in bringing the equity desired in education.

"We will need a network of optical fibres which will be completed in two years. Technological advances will be the vehicle through which we can ensure that the best teachers can reach up to the remotest villages," he said.

Speaking on education, Amartya Sen said the problem of Indian education was both of quantity as well as quality.

"School education in India suffers both insufficient coverage and low standards. This is having a heavy cost on the economy as education affects every aspect of development," Sen said.

"We need to broaden our education base radically," Sen said.

The veteran who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, was conferred an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by National University of Educational Planning and Administration Monday.