The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today said that a well educated population is essential for the economic and social progress of the country. Voicing concern over poor levels of student learning, Dr Singh pitched for continuous assessment of benefits derived by children from education besides setting up transparent and reliable systems to track their attendance in a truly meaningful way.

The Prime minister was addressing the award winning teachers at a function on the eve of Teachers' Day in New Delhi. Dr Singh said the last eight years had seen a significant increase in enrolment of children in primary schools and a decline in the gender gap in elementary education.

The Prime minister said, teachers have to be an integral part of policy-making, governance, management and day-to-day instructional strategies and decision making. He said, the empowerment of teachers would have to be the key component of the educational reform process. He said, through teachers the nation aspires to build in the children, a commitment to the values of democracy, equality, social justice, freedom, secularism and respect for human dignity.

Dr. Singh said that the government has substantially increased public spending on education since 2004. He mentioned education expenditure as a percentage of the GDP has increased to four per cent this year from from 3.3 per cent in 2004-05. Similarly, per capita public expenditure on education has increased to 2,985 this year from 888 rupees in 2004-05. He said the enhanced outlays have helped in a massive expansion of the educational infrastructure and sanction of additional post of teachers on a large scale.