Bangalore: Administrative Reforms Committee Chairman and former Karnataka Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday refused to buy the argument of higher educational institutions, including IITs and IIMs, of lack of infrastructure for increasing the intake and called for a change in their mindset.
"There is sufficient infrastructure in such institutions, but what is needed is a change in the mindset. The attitude of more-people-less-quality must go. More people translate to more talent. We have immense potential. Why should we be in the island of knowledge poverty," he said, delivering the convocation address at the Marshall University Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bangalore.
Giving a call for the immediate reconstruction of education system in the country to meet the challenges in a competitive world, Moily, heading the Oversight Committee for the implementation of 27 per cent reservation for OBCs, noted that students scoring below 99.6 per cent do not get admission into such reputed institutions.
"This kind of isolationist approach in the so called institutions of excellence was unknown in the history of human resource in the country. IIMs and IITs are being underused and caged. They must be set free to provide opportunities to a larger number of students," he said.
Warning that youngsters deprived of admission get frustrated and it was a curse for any country to have a band of frustrated youths, he said, the need of the hour was to create world-class institutions of excellence.
"If you are only worried about economic competitiveness and not scientific competitiveness, I think the future will be bleak," he added.
Moily also said India was perhaps one of the few nations with no clear policy on human resource development. There was a need for a holistic view of human capital that might soon become the only benchmark of competitiveness.
"As the global economy transforms to a knowledge economy, the only measure of competitiveness will be provided by human capital and India can have a tremendous competitive advantage if sufficient attention is paid to this critical resource," he added.
Moily said inequality in education was worst in India, Pakistan, Male, Tunisia and least in Poland and the US.
In any country, the relationship of growth rate to poverty reduction depended on investment in people in an equitable manner. Skewed distribution of education and health outcomes meant poor people were deprived of opportunity to use new technologies to emerge out of poverty.
Comments
0 comment