Many state governments have sent their requests that the fund sharing pattern under the Right to Education (RTE) should be 90:10 of the Centre and the state governments respectively, Minister of State for Human Resource Development D Purandeswari said in Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
The fund sharing pattern that was originally approved under the 11th Plan period between the Centre and the state governments was on a sliding scale.
It was supposed to be 65:35 during the first two years of the 11th Plan period, 60:40 in the third year, 55:45 in the fourth year and 50:50 thereafter.
"But this is being replaced with the new funding pattern where the sharing pattern would be 65:35 which is applicable from 2010-11. This would continue for the next five years until 2014-15," the minister said.
Pointing that Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is the vehicle for implementation of RTE, the minister said that the number of school dropouts has come down considerably.
As per census 2001, Indian had around two crore children who were out of school. The National Sample Survey Organisation conducted a survey in 2005, revealing that "we had around 1.34 crore children out of school... while as per the second survey of 2009, only 81 lakh children were out of school."
She also expressed concern over large number of colleges being affiliated to many universities affecting the quality of education and asked the state governments to look into the issue and increase the number of universities.