President Pranab Mukherjee called for an “elevated level of urgency” for academics to introduce innovative changes in India’s higher education system. Reflecting on India’s failure of universities to be positioned among the world’s top 200 list, Mukerjee said the country must be careful to create a “culture of excellence.”
India’s higher education curriculum cannot be conveyed in a “routine fashion any longer,” said Mukerjee. The President’s proposed renovations will increase coordination within the country’s academic departments and foster greater connections with international universities for student and teacher exchange programs.
Improvements will be substantially increased in coordination with the country’s Five Year Plan, but the President also added that “there needs to be an urgency to bring about innovative changes in the higher education sector of the country.” According to Mukerjee, “our academic syllabus is not up to the highest standards as recognized by world universities. We are not emphasizing on ranking ourselves. We have to be careful.”
The President further suggested enhanced focus in research activities, saying “universities need to develop in their students a scientific temper and a curriculum that will encourage the growth or research and innovation.”
Over 80 years has passed since an Indian university produced a Nobel Prize winner, and the few Indian graduates who received the Nobel Prize did so while working in United States universities. “We in India have the best teachers, students and the talent but we are not coordinated well. If we can make the right call at the right time, we will get the necessary response,” said the President.
Additional changes will also be made to India’s judicial system to increase accessibility of justice for the country’s more “vulnerable sections of society.” Increased emphasis on improving legal education of lawyers, judges, judicial officers, bureaucrats and academics will be included in the reforms.
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Written by Rachel Pozivenec