 "Narayan Murthy")
India must invest in improving the quality of research and education by investing $1 billion annually for 20 years to train teachers at various primary and secondary education levels, N R Narayana Murthy, founder and chairman emeritus, Infosys said on Wednesday.
He said the country must aspire to move to stage 4 (of innovation) in every area that affects the lives of its poorest citizens in the remotest regions.
“Improving the quality of research and education in our institutions of higher learning to generate good ideas and focusing on quick and high-quality implementation of those ideas form the solution to this aspiration,” Murthy said while addressing a gathering at the Infosys Prize 2023 event held in Bengaluru.
“Our ambition for success in stage 3 and stage 4 requires improving the quality of our primary, secondary, and higher educational institutions to embrace independent, critical, and analytical thinking; Socratic questioning; and focusing on relating theory to understand the real world around us; to solve the mysteries of nature; and to solve our real-world problems,” he added.
Murthy, 77, said while the National Education Policy (NEP) has started this journey, the outcome can be accelerated by inviting 10,000 highly accomplished retired teachers from the developed world and from India in STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to create 2,500 “Train the Teacher” colleges in 28 states and 8 union territories.
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The training programme should be year-long, he said, adding that experts have informed him that each set of 4 trainers can train 100 primary school teachers and as many secondary school teachers a year.
“We will be able to train 250,000 primary school teachers and 250,000 secondary school teachers every year by this method. These trained Indian teachers can themselves become trainers over a period of 5 years. We should pay about $100,000 a year for each of these retired teachers. This 20-year programme will cost us $1 billion a year and $20 billion for 20 years. Our nation, targeting a GDP of $5 trillion soon, will not find it a big financial burden,” Murthy said.
Highlighting four stages of innovation, he said in the first stage, a nation generally does not invent and innovate, and does not even use those ideas coming from other nations to improve the lives of its citizens.
While there is almost no nation that belongs to this category, there are several nations that have not used inventions and innovations in many aspects of the lives of their citizens, he said.
In the second stage, he said, a nation generally starts producing products and services using the inventions and innovations of other nations without any improvement and makes the lives of its citizens better.
In the third stage, a nation generally leverages higher education and research to innovate and improve on those from other nations for better productivity, quality, cost, and comfort. For example, using the ideas of SSD and 1080p TVs from the Western world, South Korea has become a leader in SSDs, laptops and 4K TVs, he said.
“Using the ideas of software development from the US, India has become recognised globally for customised software development with its global delivery model and 24-hour workday concepts. Projects like Aadhar and ONDC belong to this category,” Murthy said.
The fourth stage is when a nation becomes an inventor of new processes, products, and services, he said.
Developed nations like the US, most West European nations, Japan, and Australia belong to this group. Printing press, steam engines, computers, printers, medical instruments, TV, telephone, air conditioners, LED lights, motor cars, electricity, and solar cells are examples of such inventions, he added.
“Nations progress from stage 1 to stage 4 using education and research. India’s success in atomic energy, space exploration, vaccine production and distribution, green revolution, electric cars, and generic medicines puts us in stage 2 in most areas and in stage 3 in a few areas. We are still in stage 1 in some important areas like design of liveable cities, pollution management, traffic management, and providing clean and safe water,” Murthy said.
