Amartya Sen asks Bihar to do more for education

July 5, 2011, Patna: Bihar should strengthen the primary education system for higher education to flourish, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said today and urged the government to do more."There are certainly many signs of change in the education system in Bihar, but much more is needed to be done to bring about improvement in this sector," Sen said."You cannot make higher education flourish without strenghtening primary education," he said while releasing a report on 'Elementary Education in Bihar: Progress and Challenges.' Though the number of schools have increased and the shortfall of teachers has come down sharply, he said there were anomalies like absentism of teachers.Conceding that attendence of students has gone up and enrolment reached a comfortable figure of 98 per cent, he said that the of transition of students from the primary to the upper primary and from upper primary to higher classes was poor.He suggested measures like strengthening of public participation in primary education system and making the delivery mechanism strong.He dwelt on the glorious past of Bihar and the ancient Nalanda university.