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August 8, 2018
Vice President of India calls for Strong, Non-Profit, Philanthropic Private Universities
Photo: The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu, presenting medals to the students at the 7th Convocation of O.P. Jindal Global University, in New Delhi on August 07, 2018.
New Delhi, India, August 7, 2018 — “Strong, non-profit, philanthropic private universities, aimed at providing quality education and promoting academic freedom need to emerge at the earliest,” the Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu, said while addressing the 7th Convocation of O.P. Jindal Global University, here today.
“This process needs to go hand-in-hand with the development of existing public universities that suffer from inadequate funding for faculty and infrastructure,” Mr. Naidu added.
“Sadly, the World University Rankings over the years have not been featuring even a single Indian university in the list of top 200 ranked institutions of the world. I am deeply conscious of the fact that other developing countries like China have made vast strides in quality higher education, while India has lagged behind. We need to change this dismal scenario and infuse new values and future-oriented thinking in our universities, particularly by learning from best practices of other universities around the world which have leapfrogged in a short duration,” Mr. Naidu said.
“I believe that our universities should have open doors to collaborations with the best institutions in the world to ensure student mobility, joint faculty research, and joint projects. That way, some of the deficits in our system can be overcome through knowledge transfer. We are in an era where innovation need not mean reinventing the wheel on all aspects of university management and functioning. We can easily pick up good ideas and adapt them to Indian conditions, provided we have an open mind.”
“Our institutions are still saddled with unnecessary bureaucratic baggage, narrow academic politics, and absence of visionary administrative leadership. Financial weakness and low quality of higher education are two sides of the same coin. I wish to emphasize that significant private sector contributions are vital for new and innovative universities to come up.”
“To create world-class universities, we must draw from experiences around the world, and, a mere glance at top-ranked public and private universities around the world makes it apparent that the non-profit system is one effective way to ensure excellence in teaching, research, and capacity-building,” Mr. Naidu observed.
“I have noted that O.P. Jindal Global University has a large number of full-time foreign faculty members recruited from top universities across the world. Let me end by congratulating once again the graduating students. Remember that India and the world are waiting for you to make a valuable contribution to public well-being. No matter which profession you take up after graduating, always keep high moral values as your guiding principle,” Mr. Naidu concluded.
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 8:21 AM | Link to this Post
