Hyderabad, November 11: Our education system needs more reforms considering the diverse demographic and geographic challenges in the country, Union Minister of State for Human Resources D Purandareswari has said.
The minister addressed a gathering at the inaugural of Indo-American Education Summit held here today. The programme was organised as part of the initiative meant to increase education collaborations in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore in which around 30 top American Universities participated.
“Higher Education institutes which were accorded deemed university status should maintain specified quality benchmarks. We would not hesitate to scrap the status if they fail to meet the standards,’’ the minister announced.
Pointing that the higher education sector has come a long way since India became free country with the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) increasing from 1.2 per cent to 12.4 per cent, she said, “ We should not get complacent with what we have achieved over the past 60 years but need to strive hard to strengthen it in some parts of the country.’’ We are still falling short if we compare our GER with that of the international average which is around 23 per cent, she said and asserted that the ministry would focus on the Northeastern region of the country. The minister also said that they are planning to take appropriate measures to produce quality students by offering remedial coaching to socially backward categories.
Earlier, delivering the keynote address Indus Foundation president SB Anumolu said that collaborating with international universities is one of the cost effective methods to offer quality education and hoped that there would be more such programmes in the future.
Dr.Ashok Agarwal, advisor to the Indus Foundation, and management consultant MC Das were also present.
–Agencies