Pranab concerned over deteriorating education standard

Expressing concern over the deteriorating quality of education in the country, President Pranab Mukherjee today said adequate attention must be paid to it along with the expansion of infrastructure.
Addressing the 10th convocation of the Tripura University, he said although the country has over two crore students, 33 central universities and 16 IITs, not a single university or IIT or NIT has found place in the list of top 200 universities of the world.
"When I look into depth of it (higher education infrastructure), I feel little disappointed. Disappointed in the sense that out of every thousand students eligible in the age-group between 18 and 24, access to higher education in India is only seven against 21 in Germany and 34 in the US," Mukherjee, who is on his maiden trip to Tripura as President, said.

He said while physical expansion of education infrastructure was necessary, at the same time emphasis on the quality of education must be given.
"I feel sad, when international rating agencies were identifying 200 world class institutions, not a single Indian university, single IIT, single NIT found place. We must improve our standards."
He said for about 1,800 years, India had dominated the field of higher education.

"India was a prominent seat of learning in ancient times and those universities were visited by famous scholars like Panini, Chanakya and Kautilya."
He said universities like Nalanda, Taxila and Vikramshila came into being well before Oxford and Cambridge did and where students from home and abroad assembled.

Mukherjee said that 84 years ago C V Raman, a scholar from the Calcutta University, won the Nobel Prize and recently another graduate from the same university, Amartya Sen, won the Economics Nobel.
He expressed dismay at the rise of atrocities against women and appealed to the people to restore values of the country's ancient civilisation.
"We cannot allow this decay. It is time for self introspection. We have to restore our old values. We must have respect for pluralism, moral values and discipline," he said.
In his maiden trip to the state, surrounded by Bangladesh from three sides, he President was greeted by people who lined up the streets with banners and his posters.

Mukherjee, accompanied by his daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee, also met ground level innovators at the University.