The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Higher education declining in quality: VC

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Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Higher education declining in quality: VC

Staff Reporter

ACHIEVEMENT: Vice-Chancellor of Bharathiar University G. Thiruvasagam (second left) handing over degree certificate to a student at the graduation of KGiSL Institute of Information Management in Coimbatore recently.

COIMBATORE: Even though it is a cliché to say that higher education in India is at crossroads, it still contains an element of truth. We have reached a point when the need for bringing about radical changes can no longer be ignored, G. Thiruvasagam, Vice-Chancellor, Bharathiar University, said here recently.

Delivering the graduation address at the KGiSL Institute of Information Management, he lamented that higher education was undergoing deterioration in quality, resource crunch and poor infrastructure. There was a crying need to strengthen higher education in terms of quality and effectiveness.

“The importance of higher education in building the nation is beyond doubt. Agricultural, industrial and scientific growth of the country depends upon creating a corpus of well-trained professionals in a variety of academic disciplines and that can happen only with good quality higher education,” the Vice-Chancellor said.

India had become a global hub for the back office operations of several multi-national companies because of its cost-effective workforce, foreign banks, airlines and telecom companies. India was being seen as the emerging laboratory for the world, where hi-tech companies from Intel to Microsoft and Nokia had set up research and development centres, Mr. Thiruvasagam added.

Speaking on the Government initiatives in providing computer education in schools, he said after Karnataka and Kerala, Tamil Nadu had allocated substantial budget for rapid development of computer literacy in secondary schools. “At present, only two per cent of Indian schools are equipped with computers as compared to 99 per cent in the United States,” Mr. Thiruvasagam said.

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