Industry should participate in higher education: Tharoor

Industry  should come forward and participate in the higher education in the country to create centres of excellence as is the case with developed countries, said Shashi Tharoor, Minister  of State for Human Resource Development at a CII education summit today.

Tharoor said universities like Harvard, MIT, Silicon valley  etc. have been set up by the enlightened business houses. In India also many premier institutions like Indian Institute of Science, BITS Pillani, and Xavier Institute of Labour Management etc. were set up by the corporate houses. However, during the post - independence period such initiatives were very few.

While Tharoor welcomed the efforts made by the Infosys for  setting up centres of excellence for training their employees. He exhorted corporations to go beyond their employees and  target at  talented students other than their immediate beneficiaries.

Calling for  for transformation in the eco system governing the education sector in India, Tharoor observed that demographic dividend could be achieved only by spreading higher education and enhancing the employability of the millions of  young people joining the workforce.” The 540 million people, who are below 35 years of age is a national asset and it is important to give them a productive platform to harness their talents and productivity,” he added.

Stressing the need for  greater innovations to propelling India to the  next trajectory of growth, the minister said that incubation centres should be set up with support of the industry to permeate the culture of innovation not necessarily in the science streams but also in disciplines like art, culture, social sciences etc.

In this regard, he mentioned that the government is setting up five design and innovation centres, which would be scaled up to 20 in number in different parts of the country. This, he said, would propel up the R&D with focus on private –public partnership. The Delhi University will be implementing one such centre of excellence.