Bright scholars go abroad for good quality education: President Pranab Mukherjee

Mysuru: Though India’s higher education sector is the second biggest in the world, there are only a handful of higher education institutions having the quality to produce graduates for the global market.

“Indian institutions are absent from the top 200 positions in world university rankings published by reputed agencies. Many bright scholars go abroad for want of good quality institutions in our country,” said President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday.

Speaking after launching the year-long centenary celebrations of University of Mysuru, the President said: ”India with two thirds of its 1.25 billion people below 35 years of age has great prospects of becoming one of the front ranking nations. But the enrolment rate at 20 percent is not enough to harness opportunities in an increasingly knowledge intensive world,” he noted.

Mr Mukherjee suggested that transforming higher education requires innovative changes on several fronts. “Availability of good faculty is one. If faculty is the life blood of a higher education institution, then a good governance structure is its taproot,” he said.

The President congratulated University of Mysuru which has evolved from providing higher education to 593 students with 11 departments in 1916 to an institution with 54 post-graduate departments educating 85,000 students including 1400 foreign students from 50 countries.

In Bengaluru, while inaugurating the centenary celebration of FKCCI, Mr Mukherjee said developing businesses into models of excellence requires a better appreciation of socio-economic realities. Businesses are meant not only to earn profits for their shareholders but also to add value to society at large.