New Delhi, Nov. 14 (PTI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said a proposal to make the Class X CBSE examination optional is an experiment that is still being debated and felt that no decision should be taken in haste.

“We are still debating on this issue. This is an experiment. We should not take a decision in haste,” Singh told a group of children during an interaction organised by CNN-IBN on Children’s Day.

He was asked whether children were not being harmed by the decision. “You are shielding them from difficulties,” a student said.

The government had in September announced plans to make the CBSE board exams for Class X optional from the next academic year (2010-11) and introduce a grades system from the current year.

Asked why education was getting costlier by the day, Singh said this was so only in private schools. In government schools, every effort was being made to ensure that education did not become a privilege for only the rich, he added.

On what the government is doing for children who are not in schools and are living on the roads, Singh said: “It pains me a lot. We are trying to educate all children under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.”

Singh told the children that education had made him what he was.

“I am an aam aadmi (common man). If I can become the Prime Minister, then so can you. I came from a very ordinary, lower-middle-class family. It is because of my education that I am what I am,” he said. “So I think education has played a very important role in making me what I am.”

Wife Gursharan Kaur by his side, the 77-year-old teacher-turned-politician appeared relaxed as he fielded questions on Maoist violence, coalition politics, poor students not getting education and his fondness for blue turbans.

Asked why Indians win the Nobel Prize only after they leave the country, Singh said India did not have an atmosphere where much importance was given to people who could think “out of the box”.

“The trend of questioning things has not been a part of our education system and this is why we see that when Indian children go abroad, they do much better in terms of education and research.”

Singh recalled the first time he met Jawaharlal Nehru at Punjab University.

“It was a most moving experience for me because he used to talk to anyone who had the courage to walk up to him. It was the life’s wish of many to touch Pandit Nehru’s hand but his security forces would not let that happen.”

Asked why he spoke so little, Singh said: “When you have a coalition government to run, there is no use in talking too much. I think things get complicated when you talk more.”