President Pranab Mukherjee today said that a large pool of talent was lying untapped in Indian universities, which once channelised, could make India a world leader in education.
Underlining that research was key to tapping this potential, the President asked Vice-Chancellors of Central Universities to make the institutions launch pads of innovative ideas.
"India can be a world leader in education, if only we discover the will and leadership to take us to that pinnacle," Pranab told the second Conference of VCs of Central Universities at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.
"There is huge potential of these institutions which lies untapped. The brilliance of our scholars and the exuberance of young students is waiting to be channelised into positive action," he said, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement.
He called upon Central Universities to be the launch pads of innovative ideas and institutionalise structures that can identify ingenuous ideas and mentor them into viable products, the statement said.
He expressed appreciation that in the last one year Innovation Clubs had been set up in 22 Central universities and urged remaining CUs to take such pro-active steps.
Mukherjee said a roadmap needed to be prepared after so that issues that were deliberated at the conference could be addressed properly.
The Conference was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Human Resource Devlopment Minister M M Pallam Raju and other ministers, VCs of 40 Central Universities and officials ofthe UGC and NITs.
