NEW DELHI: Dr Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, gave a clarion call to industry to participate in the higher education in the country to create centers of excellence as is the case with developed countries. Universities like Harvard, MIT, Silicon Valley etc. have been set up by the enlightened business houses. In India also many premier institutions like Indian Institute of Science, BITS Pillani, and Xavier Institute of Labor Management etc. were set up by the corporate houses.
However, during the post-independence period such initiatives were very few. During the post-independence days, there was less focus on research and innovation. Since 1991, he mentioned that there have been positive changes and greater partnership between industry and academia on the one hand and industry and the government on the other hand to create a conducive eco system for promotion of R&D and innovation.
In this regard, he welcomed the efforts made by the Infosys for setting up centers of excellence for training their employees. He exhorted corporations to go beyond their employees and target talented students other than their immediate beneficiaries.
While giving away the AICTE-CII Awards for recognizing excellence in industry-engineering colleges linkages at AICTE-CII University-Industry Congress 2012 in New Delhi, Dr Tharoor underscored that all legislative measures that have been initiated by the predecessors in the ministry would be carried forward. In this regard, he said that the higher education bill, which has been referred to the select committee after its introduction in the Parliament, would be considered for passage in the coming session.
The survey, developed by CII and AICTE, is an instrument to gauge ‘institutes’ linkages with industry to map the benefits that such linkages accrue. The area of the survey is to identify the areas where institutions need to improve their linkages with industry to show them the path to do so.
Dr Tharoor said that the reforms in the education sector would continue and proactive steps would be taken to promote greater industry-academia interface, particularly in the field of higher education.
Calling for transformation in the eco system governing the education sector in India, Dr Tharoor observed that demographic dividend could be achieved only by spreading higher education and enhancing the employability of the millions of young people joining the workforce.” The 540 million people, who are below 35 years of age is a national asset and it is important to give them a productive platform to harness their talents and productivity,” he added.
Stressing the need for greater innovations to propelling India to the next trajectory of growth, the Minister said that incubation centers should be set up with support of the industry to permeate the culture of innovation not necessarily in the science streams but also in disciplines like art, culture, social sciences etc.
He mentioned that the government is setting up five design and innovation centers, which would be scaled up to 20 in number in different parts of the country. This, he said, would propel the R&D with focus on private-public partnership. The Delhi University will be implementing one such centre of excellence.
Earlier welcoming the Minister and delegates, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII flag marked the recent initiatives of CII in partnership with AICTE and the government to value add to the higher education in the country.
He particularly referred to the maiden survey made by AICTE and CII to gauge the industry and engineering colleges linkages and also the prime Minister’s Fellowship Scheme for Doctoral research jointly promoted by Sceince & Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and CII.
India Post News Service
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