Prez: Must improve quality of education
Speaking at the annual convocation of Jamia Millia Islamia University, President Pranab Mukherjee asked the university to approach the ratings process in a more systematic and proactive manner to upgrade the country’s educational standards.
Universities also need to actively participate in programmes and undertake outreach activities for the success of recent government initiatives aimed at financial inclusion, creation of model villages, clean India and digital infrastructure, he said.
Mr Mukherjee said that the country has made rapid strides in boosting higher educational infrastructure with 723 universities and over 37,000 colleges. “Yet, many of our institutes lack quality that denies students world- class education.
● India has 723 universities and over 37,000 colleges, yet many lack quality that denies students world- class education
Many bright students leave the shores to pursue studies abroad. We cannot lose our talent, and for that, we have to upgrade our educational standards,” he added.
Stressing on an all- out effort to revamp the academic system as the need of the hour, the President said leading institutions have to approach the ratings process in a more systematic and proactive manner as not even a single Indian institute is part of any list of Top 200 universities in the world. However, he said Indian universitites are better than what the “rankings project”. He said there was a need to revamp the physical infrastructure, including classrooms, fill up vacant faculty positions, attract talent from abroad, review and change curriculum to make it inter- disciplinary and industry- oriented, and promote centres of excellence after identifying core competencies.
Mr Mukherjee called the universities to produce socially- conscious individuals who are imbued with core values like patriotism, compassion, tolerance, honesty, discipline and respect for women. Mr Mukherjee advised the universities to harness technology to overcome handicaps like faculty- shortage and lack of competency in domain areas. “The National Knowledge Network and the National Mission on Education in ICT are key technology initiatives in the education sector,” he added. HRD minister Smriti Irani was also present and asked the students to use the knowledge for the benefit of the society.