Important to equip youth with necessary skills to enhance employability: Prez Mukherjee

President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday asserted that it was important to equip the Indian youth with necessary skills to enhance their employability.

"We are a nation having a significant young population - about 600 million in the age group of 25 years and below. In order to ensure that this demographic dividend does not turn into a demographic liability, we need to equip our youth with necessary skills to enhance their employability," President Mukherjee said after releasing the India Rankings 2017 report and presented awards to top ten institutions in overall category at a functions held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

President Mukherjee said that in his capacity as a visitor to the institutions of higher learning, he has always emphasised on their active participation in the international rating system and to focus attention on the rankings process.

"I believed that our institutions have all the qualities necessary for being ranked high. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) started by the Ministry of HRD and now in its second year is a laudable initiative and will help our institutions to realise their potential and emerge as world class institutions," he said.

The President said that the higher education sector in India has seen massive expansion during the last two decades. The number of universities, degree colleges, IITs, NITs, etc has increased, but certain issues remain to be addressed.

He added that the quality teachers and the problem of retaining talents in the country were few issues which needed to be addressed.

"We must take full advantage of the technological developments which have taken place. Through the use of technology, students in India can have access to top class teachers in universities abroad," he said.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar and Minister of State for Human Resource Development Mahendra Nath Pandey were among the few dignitaries present on the occasion.

The 'India Rankings 2016' were put together with the participation of 3,500 private and public institutions, which was based on five criteria - teaching and learning resources, graduation outcome, perception, outreach and inclusivity and research productivity.

The Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc) tops the list, institutions such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and the Visva-Bharati also flared well.