New Delhi: The Government of India plans to make it mandatory for having a website for educational institutions, where the school's infrastructure facilities and faculty will have to be spelt out.

"That is going to be part of the law, and we are going to take away their recognition if they violate this," Union Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said.

The Minister also spoke about using the unique identification number, the first set of which is going to be rolled out in about a year, for identifying and monitoring India's primary education programme.

"Each child will be given a unique identification number, which we will use to determine if he or she has dropped out or not," he said.

It was among some other measures to reform India's education sector, Sibal said at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit said.

He said India is not going to give up its opposition to for-profit educational institutions as any collapse of such entities would impact students.

"If profit means giving dividend to shareholders from fees that parents pay, then my position is no," Sibal said.

Nowhere in the world has this happened. Education institutions are not like some company that can wind up one day. We cannot allow educational institutions to go bust, Sibal said.

The Minister also said there was talk of using latest technology to bring higher education to a greater mass, but the main responsibility of the government remained in promoting primary education.

"Out of the 509-million workforces, 70 per cent haven't got primary education. We first need to get the schooling system right," Sibal said.
—iGovernment Bureau