Prez asks educational institutes to take on moral challenges

President Pranab Mukherjee today said recent spurt in crimes against women had shaken the collective conscience of the nation and educational institutes should act to take on the moral challenges the country faces.
"The recent increase in cases of brutal assault on women and children has shaken the collective conscience of our nation. These unfortunate incidents call for effective measures to ensure their safety and security," Mukherjee said.
"It also highlights the need for us to bring such degradation of values to an immediate halt. Our institutes, beginning from schools, must act as guides in meeting the contemporary moral challenges," he added.

Mukherjee, who was speaking at the first convocation ceremony of IIT Jodhpur, said India today stands at "the cusp of greatness" where there were challenges but also enormous opportunities ahead.
"Science and technology is duly recognised as the vehicle to take India into the front ranks of the nations of the world. We have to build a large pool of scientific and technical manpower to aid our progress," he said.
The President also said the country has a growing young population and within a decade it was likely to have the largest workforce in the world. This demographic transformation must be leveraged by us by expanding technical education in the country, he said.

He, however, said "the higher education sector in India today does not have enough good quality institutions to meet the growing aspirations of our youth".
"Along with measures to increase quantity, the drive to enhance the quality of education should engage the attention of our policy makers," Mukherjee said.
He also expressed concern that Indian universities did not figure among the list of top two hundred universities and added that for nearly thirteen centuries it was ancient Indian universities which had dominated the world higher education system.