By IANS,
New Delhi : Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chief ministerial candidate for Delhi V.K. Malhotra Tuesday slammed Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for her government’s “poor performance” in the education sector and promised to open 50 more colleges if voted to power.
“During the last 10 years, the Congress government has paid no attention to education. They have not added a single college in the Delhi University during their two terms,” Malhotra told reporters in a press conference here.
“Students with 70-80 percent marks are not able to secure admission in colleges and thus forced to opt for expensive education,” he said.
Though Delhi is the capital of the country, students from here have to go out of the state for higher education, he said.
“I promise to open 50 new colleges. I will also try to open maximum number of medical colleges possible. I will also try to create awareness by introducing afternoon and evening shifts in existing colleges to accommodate more students.”
The Dikshit government has forced higher education to come under the control of private players making it difficult for middle-class parents to afford education for their wards, he added.
He said that all that the Dikshit government had done was to rename the Indraprastha University as Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.
Malhotra also criticised the Congress government for claiming it had opened four new engineering colleges.
“They have just upgraded four existing polytechnics and converted the three-year course into a four-year one,” he said.
“School education requires major attention and investment. We will work on that issue. If voted to power, our government would try to fulfil needs and aspirations of youngsters to receive the best education in all fields,” he added.