Education must deepen students' linkage with society: President

President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said that education must deepen students' linkage with society and develop a scientific temper in them.

"Knowledge is individual. We must follow a multi-disciplinary approach that allows students to learn and seek knowledge holistically," the president said.

He was speaking here at the launch of 'IMPRINT India', a joint initiative of Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science.

"It is necessary to develop in our students a scientific temper, which allows the flight of imagination beyond the realm of grades and classrooms. Promotion of research at the undergraduate level would assist such an objective," he said.

The president said that "quality should not be sacrificed at the altar of expansion". Greater number of institutions translate into greater number of seats, enhancing access in higher education, he said.

He said the Indian institutes have broken into the list of world's top 200 institutes for the first time.

"I compliment the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, which is ranked 147th, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, which got 179th rank in the QS World University Rankings list of the world's top 200 institutions," the president said.

IMPRINT India will focus on 10 themes, with each to be coordinated by one IIT/IISc, namely health care (IIT Kharagpur), computer science and ICT (IIT Kharagpur), advance materials (IIT Kanpur), water resources and river systems (IIT Kanpur), sustainable urban design (IIT Roorkee), defence (IIT Madras), manufacturing(IIT Madras), nano-technology hardware (IIT Bombay), environmental science and climate change (IISc) and energy security (IIT Bombay).

The president said that academic institutions were an important stakeholder for the socio-economic development of the nation.

"Our institutions must impart education to students that helps expand their intellect, form their character, instil in them a spirit of studies and love for the motherland."

Mukherjee said that the new education policy must alter the dynamics of the education sector and help the nation achieve the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) target of 30 percent by 2020, "a goal we cannot afford to miss".

He called upon the academic leaders of institutes in social sector and humanities' domain to formulate a similar joint initiative like 'IMPRINT India' for conducting research on themes of relevance to public policy-making.