the 12th fiveyear plan will be focusing on the right to education rte act vatsala shrangi reports the 12th fiveyear plan which has been delayed and likely to be released by april is going to focus on the right to education rte act as its central theme apart from rte the other key areas will include higher education and the setting up of central universities the 12th fiveyear plan is still in its drafting stage the two sectors education and health will be the focus this year under education implementation of rte which had been allocated around rupees two lakh and thirty one thousand crore for the last five years will be a priority this means approximately around rs 4550000 crore will be spent on its implementation every year which is a big amount and has to be substantiated says mamta verma director media hrd press information bureau challenges the concern for rte is understandable according to the annual status of education report rural 2011 private school enrolment is increasing in most states despite rte since rte came into force in 2010 the two major obstacles have been availability of teachers and setting up of neighbourhood schools presently there is a shortage of nearly five lakh teachers while about three lakh teachers teaching at the elementary level are untrained as per the rte roadmap neighbourhood schools are to be established and improved infrastructure to be ensured as per the pupilteacher ratio one teacher 30 children both by march 2013 the provision for training untrained teachers is to be met by 2015 according to the annual report 201011 mhrd the provisions of rte are being implemented through sarva shiksha abhiyan ssa accordingly the ssa norms have been revised to align them with the requirement of the rte act ssa is being implemented in partnership with state governments to cover the entire country and address the needs of 192 million children pending matters as to the other issues concerning higher education verma informs that the bill for setting up 15 more central universities in states like rajasthan and uttaranchal passed threefour years ago is being implemented now as per the recent government decision to tone down its ambition to set up 14 universities of innovation for which the hrd had moved a new cabinet note without the numeric specification she says the government has withdrawn the numeric specification this is because it doesnt have sufficient funds it might finally end up setting up the universities but the specification has been withdrawn for the time being besides verma concludes that the foreign university bill which has been pending since 2009 is with the standing committee which has made a few recommendations for it to go to the cabinet then it can be taken up in the parliament for clearance possibly this year itself courtesy myeducationtimescom