Need to invest in quality education: President

Says these days lot of Indian students are leaving the country to peruse higher education in foreign countries as Indian courses are lagging behind world standard

The country must invest in imparting quality education to the students instead of opening more universities and colleges, President Pranab Mukherjee said today speaking at a college function here.

"As I speak to you, there are over 723 universities and over 37,000 colleges in India. But none of them are in the list of top 200 education institute of world class reputation, identified by recognised rating agencies. Why should this happen? Let us take vow all--students, teachers, faculty members and policy makers--to reverse this process," he said while speaking at the golden jubilee celebration of city-based Rama Devi Women's college here.

In ancient days, historical universities of India such as Nalada and Taxila used to attract huge number of students from abroad. But these days a lot of Indian students are leaving the country to peruse higher education in foreign countries as Indian courses are lagging behind world standard.

"We are lagging behind in quality education. We must invest in education and research to change the trend," he added while speaking to the students.

During his two-day trip to Odisha, the President visited three other educational institutes of the state. He also visited Jagannath Temple at Puri before departing for Delhi in the evening today. Besides, he also talked to political leaders about current impasse in the Odisha assembly during his trip.On Saturday, leaders from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress met him separately to discuss about current logjam in the Odisha assembly as the state government has adopted every tactic to not discuss the chit fund scam issue on the floor fearing embarrassment for the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

After discussing with opposition party leaders he assured them to look into the allegations about autocratic functioning of the ruling BJD in the ongoing winter session of the Odisha Assembly and act as per constitutional provisions.