Pranab faults higher education institutes on quality

He voiced his dissatisfaction on the quality of institutions imparting higher education in country

President Pranab Mukherjee voiced his dissatisfaction on the quality of institutions imparting higher education in the country though he admitted that efforts at expanding higher education infrastructure have yielded positive results.

“Our efforts for expanding higher education infrastructure in India have yielded positive results. Right now, we are having 659 degree giving institutions, 33000 colleges and more than 10 million students enrolled in higher education. How spectacular the number may be, on account of lack of quality, very few academic institutions can claim global reckoning. As per an international ranking, there is not a single Indian university, including the IITs, amongst the top 200 universities in the world”, Mukherjee said here in his address at the second convocation of Indian Institute of Technology- Bhubaneswar.

Leading universities of the West and universities even in countries like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are ranked higher than any Indian institution, he added.

“It was not so in the past. For almost 1800 years from the sixth century BC to 12th century AD, we had an unbeatable higher education system represented by universities like Takshashila, Nalanda, Vikramashila, Valabhi, Somapura and Odantapuri”, he said..

Those institutions were a magnet for knowledge seekers from distant places. But today, we languish behind many nations, he rued.

The President called for innovative changes for improving the academic system, incorporation of modern methods of evaluation in the examination system, recruitment of quality teachers and infusion of competition among the universities.

Academic regulation must be streamlined to create a more flexible, transparent and student friendly educational system, he suggested.

Terming innovation as an important cog in the wheel of development, he said that the mantle to make the 'Science, Technology and Innovation' policy successful and unleash the inventiveness lies on the higher education institutions in the country.

He asserted that all universities and engineering institutions must put research at the forefront of their academic efforts.

Lauding the IIT-Bhubaneswar for its proactive steps in seeking global academic cooperation for its initiatives on faculty exchange programmes with foreign varsities, he stressed that academic institutions must forge knowledge partnerships.

Stressing on strong academic networks that benefits collaborators  through exchange of ideas, the President said academic  institutions must forge knowledge partnerships, both within and outside the country.

As many as 103 BTech students of IIT-Bhubaneswar were conferred the degrees at the convocation ceremony while two others were awarded doctorate degrees.

IIT also conferred the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) to UR Rao, former  chairman of Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO), Asit Biswas, Professor and President, Third World Centre for Water Mangement- Mexico and S Kumar Bhattacharya, Professor and Director of Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, UK.