Inder Kumar Gujral was delivering an address on `Education - The Challenging Realities' at a function organised by the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS) at the National Film Archives auditorium here. Gujral believed that the education policies of the country are confronted with several deficiencies. Although the Constitution of India had mentioned that `the state shall endeavor to provide, within a period of ten years from now from the commencement of the Constitution for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years, the promised ten years expired in the year 1962, he observed.

``There is a discernible talk about the review of the Constitution,'' he said, taking a mild dig at the BJP government. The former Prime Minister believed that the country would turn a crucial corner if these principles were made enforceable by law. ``I am conscious that the much quoted Article-45 is a non-justiciable part of the Constitution. Is it not time that we make Directive Principles of State Policy from Article 43 to 51 enforceable by by law,'' he asked.

Gujral was of the opinion that human development has to be the core of our efforts. ``We must focus on strategies to eradicate illiteracy, universalise basic education, improve the quality of education and take affirmative steps to enable all children complete primary, secondary, vocational and higher education,'' he asserted.

He firmly believed that learning methods must embrace inter-disciplinary systems and the context of learning must change to make human environment interdependence and its values and ethics, a central part of teaching in all disciplines.

The challenges called for internal re-adjustments for economic and social priorities. Because of the colonial-cum-fuedal baggage that has not been shed, we are now seeing that the quality of education suffers from class, caste and religious discrimination, he said. The affluent have access to better education while the poorer section are doomed to get their children educated in sub-standard schools at mediums that do not prepare them to face challenges, he explained.

According to Gujral, of the 25 million children that are brought to this world by Indian parents every year, nearly half are girls. If we are to hand out to them what our constitution had promised that is their right to education, the kismat of this nation would undoubtedly be rosy, he remarked.

Earlier, director Ranjit Mudholkar and founder director S B Majumdar also spoke.