‘Higher education needs to be more accessible’

“About 14 crore children are eligible for higher education in the country but only 3 crore have access to it. We have a serious shortage here,” G. Viswanathan, chancellor of VIT University, said here on Wednesday.

Speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women, he said that though there has been a demand to allocate six per cent of the GDP for education, only four per cent has been given so far.

“It is the job of the government to provide education. If the government spends more on education, then, the citizens of the country won’t have to spend much. The poor and the middle class should be able to get education,” he added.

David Jawahar, registrar of the University of Madras, said education has to be socially relevant and inclusive too.

During the event, ‘A Centre for Excellence’ of the college was also launched.

Principal of the college Lalitha Balakrishnan said this centre was specifically for skill development to economically empower students.

“The centre will have student clubs to promote talent and social and community initiatives. We are also forging international collaborations with universities abroad to expose the students to global education,” she added.