What does the Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance have to say on Education?

Here're the extracts relating to education from the draft of the Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance Government (UPA) led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which has just been sworn in. Arjun Singh is the Minister in charge of Education.

1. The UPA government pledges to raise public spending in education to least 6 per cent of GDP with at least half this amount being spent on primary and secondary schools.
   It has never gone beyond 4.3% of GDP till 2001-02, despite an official target of 6% being set as far back as 1968. So it will be a tall order to achieve.
   
2. The UPA government will introduce a cess on all central taxes to finance the commitment to universalise access to quality basic education.
   
3. A National Commission on Education will be set up to allocate resources and monitor programmes.
   
4. The UPA will take immediate steps to reverse the trend of communalisation of education that had set in the past five years. It will also ensure that all institutions of higher learning and professional education retain their autonomy.
   
5. The UPA will ensure that nobody is denied professional education because he or she is poor.
   Presumably, this will happen through the EDFC proposed in the Congress' manifesto.
   
6. Academic excellence and professional competence would be the sole criteria for all appointments to bodies like the ICHR, ICSSR, UGC, NCERT.
   
7. A national cooked nutritious mid-day meal scheme will be introduced in primary and secondary schools.

An earlier post summarised the education-related points of the 2004 Manifestos of various parties.