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Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday stressed upon the need to provide quality education to children with technical inputs. Speaking at a function after inaugurating 31 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas in various parts of the country, Gandhi said, "Everyone has a right to education and it was not limited to a few." She also voiced concern over the high dropout rate and the absence of teachers in village schools. " The dropout rate, particularly amongst the minority and poor, was high and one fourth of the teachers in village schools remain absent," she said. "Children should be given such education which helps them keep pace with modern changes and developments," she added. Hoping that the Right to Education Bill would address all issues pertaining to education in the country, Gandhi said: " "The UPA government is giving scholarships... awareness about these has to be spread." Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said that it was the dream of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to educate children from backward areas of the countries. "The UPA government aims to provide Navodaya Vidyalayas to all the districts of the country, Sibal added. At present, there are over 550 such schools in rural areas across the country. JNVs seek to provide good quality modern education to the children predominantly from the rural areas. The establishment of the new schools come at a time when the Government is planning to introduce new programmes in the existing schools and widen their appeal. These schools could lay focus on particular disciplines like sports, art or music.

Sonia calls for education with technical inputs