Cloud campuses may be the future, but infrastructure a problem: Tharoor

Cloud campuses may just be what are needed to meet India's growing demand for quality education, but problems like shortage of power and last mile connectivity may play spoilsport.

Stating that there is a need to train the young population to reap the demographic dividend Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor said Wednesday that lack of infrastructure was a big hurdle.

"We can have a youthful dynamic working population only if we can equip our workforce with knowledge and training. If not we will have a demographic disaster," Tharoor said at a discussion organised by IT training major NIIT.

The median age of the Indian population at present is 28 years.

"Technology can solve the problem, but the real problem is infrastructure. Power is one problem. In case of the national knowledge network, in many places the last mile connection is difficult," he said.

He was speaking at a panel discussion Tuesday after NIIT announced its Cloud Campus, aims to provide new-age training programmes in IT, banking, global finance, management and digital and social media marketing.

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research chief Samir Brahmachari, however, said technology would soon be developed to get over the present day hiccups.

"There are innovations, I was able to use my tablet in Bastar. Technology will change and access will be easier," he said.

A cloud campus is a virtual campus which uses the internet to conduct classes 24x7.