NEW DELHI, April 10 – India’s institutes of higher learning continue to be challenged by problems of quality, which needs to be addressed through drastic action, its President Pranab Mukherjee (Pic)said. He cited an international survey that indicated that there is not a single Indian university amongst the top 200 universities in the world.
“This calls for drastic action to reform the way education is imparted in our universities and academic institutes. A culture of excellence should be embedded in the thought process of our higher education providers,” he said. Quality, affordability and accessibility should become the mainstay of India’s higher education system, he said at the 10th annual convocation of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra on Tuesday. Mukherjee also lamented the country’s standing in term of innovation.
“In a world of depleting natural resources, future growth will have to be secured by innovation and constant technology up-gradation. India’s innovation balance sheet is not very encouraging,” he pointed out. In 2011, 42,000 patent applications were filed in our country compared to over 500,000 applications filed each in China and the United States.
According to a recent ‘Forbes’ survey, only three Indian companies have been listed amongst the world’s most innovative companies. Mukherjee opined that this number would increase if the process of innovation is made a permanent feature in the country’s institutions of learning.
“Our universities, engineering colleges and research and development centres should be the hotbeds of innovation,” said Mukherjee. Setting up more incubation parks, building linkages with grass-root innovators, enhancing the number of research fellowships, and driving inter-disciplinary research are some of the immediate measures need to be taken, he added.
BERNAMA
