Hyderabad, Nov 10th: The 6,000 model schools, announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to improve the quality of secondary education, will start functioning from the new academic year Minister of State for Human Resources development D Purandeswari said. Talking to newspersons on the sidelines of Indo-US Education Summit here, she said the Prime Minister wanted the schools to be set up on a mission mode. The Prime Minister was coordinating with as many as 17 ministries to ensure that schools that he had announced in his Independence Day speech this year, start functioning from the new academic year.

She said each school would cost over Rs five to six crore and added private players must join hands with the Government to improve the quality of secondary education in the country. ''We are working out the modalities for participation by the private sector,'' she added. Earlier, inaugurating the summit, she referred to US President Barack Obama's praise of ''India's school education system'' and told the delegates from USA and Canada that the three countries must learn from each other's experiences.'' She said 85 to 90 per cent success had been achieved in ensuring free education to children in the age of six to 14 years through the ambitious 'Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan' (SSA) programme.