HIGHER EDUCATION

A Public Lecture on “Higher Technical Education in India: The prospect, the challenges and the way forward” was conducted at Indian National Science Academy New Delhi on 14th February 2013. Prof. G. R. Tyagi was deputed to represent the college at the Summit.

At the out set Prof. Krishna Lal, President Indian National Science Academy, cited the history and achievements of Indian National Science Academy and then introduced Prof. P. Rama Rao, the speaker, to the audience mentioning his various contributions and achievements in the field of science and technology.

Prof. P. Rama Rao began his lecture with the note that GDP of a country largely depends on its per capital income which in turn is function of human capital and it’s Technological capability. India is fairly at lower level amongst various countries of the world in terms of per capital income.

Higher Education in india has expended a lot during last few decades but has many weaknesses and challenges. Today we have 659 universities with immense diversity including 295 state Universities 100 private universities and 129 deemed universities with enrolment of 260 lakh students. But quality factor is quite low as only 287 of them satisfy UGC norms. Similarly out of 33623 technological institutes only 8216 satisfy UGC norms . We have only 120 institutes with potential excellence. Poor quality fraction of higher education can also be gauged by the fact that we provide less than 0.35/1000 PhDs against 7/1000 in Japan and 4/1000 in USA. More so we are able to impart higher education to only 18% of eligible group of our youth.

The Speaker concluded his talk suggesting widening of infrastructure particularly of higher technical education by public and private participation. He observed that we should not expect government to do every thing required.