Hundreds of students in 322 government colleges across the State will be able to use free Wi-Fi facility from this July, Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayaraddi announced on Sunday.
He was speaking at a programme organised by The Hindu to felicitate the leaders of the education sector for their contribution to the field in Karnataka. He said that free W-Fi was currently available in 90 colleges.
Mr. Rayaraddi, who also released The Doyens , a coffee-table book on 26 educationists brought out by The Hindu , said the government was exploring all avenues to improve quality of government colleges. “We have recruited 2,100 assistant professors through a transparent process, and will train them,” he said. “All students in government first grade degree colleges will be provided free laptop,” he said.
AICTE vice-chairman M.P. Poonia, in his keynote address, said this was the first time a media house was coming forward to help higher education. Taking a dig at the media industry, he said: “We start the day reading bad news in the papers. Can we have more good news like this, namely advances made in education in our country?” He spoke about how 1500 years back, Nalanda University was the most sought after institute in the world, with a teacher to student ratio of 1:5. "Today we are struggling to meet those standards, " he said. Pointing out that just 24.5% of students in India got in to higher education, he said steps must be taken to make education affordable to all sections and to make students industry ready.
Speaking about the proactive role by Karnataka in supporting quality education, M.S. Shyamasundar, Adviser, NAAC, said: “The State government made accreditation mandatory even before the UGC did. It has the second highest number of accredited colleges.” Talking about the low gross enrollment ratio, he said that educational entrepreneurs had a major role to play in increasing the number of students who get into higher studies. He spoke about how NAAC could help students and colleges. "Earlier, the US was not considering our 3 year programme. Now the scenario has changed and for A grade institution, kids can go for masters. This is a contribution of NAAC," he said. Participating in quality assurance improves documentation process as well, he added.
Prabhakar Kore, chairman of KLE Society, who was among those felicitated, said: “Many may not know of KLE is a rural-based institution. We run over 300 institutions in north Karnataka, Maharashtra and Delhi. Ours is one of the few institutions in this sector which does not belong to any family. I'm an elected chairman. It is the only democratically-run education institution in Karnataka.” Other awardees also spoke about their passion for education and said it was the first time they had been recognised in such a manner.
Mukund Padmanabhan, Editor of The Hindu , and Rajiv C. Lochan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., publishers of The Hindu and Group newspapers, were present.
