President stresses need to arrest declining education standard

Ranchi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday stressed the need to arrest the declining standards of education in the country and sought quality improvement by engaging focussed attention of academic leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders to this end.

"Multiple interventions are necessary. Attracting quality faculty and continuous faculty development is one. Adjunct faculty from the industry and research institutions if hired can provide practical orientation to course modules," he said.

Inaugurating the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the 26th Convocation of the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, here, Mukherjee said through promoting centres of excellence, core competencies of an institute can be nurtured.

"Through the establishment of research parks, cutting- edge research can be pursued and that will help develop a world class eco system in our institutions," he said.

The President also said that institutes can also pursue establishment of partnerships with foreign and domestic institutions by signing Memoranda of Understanding.

He said there was a need for giving a boost to start-ups to provide a head-start to various innovative activities.

"Due to facilitated environments that have evolved, the youth today has a greater share for entrepreneurship. Many start-ups in India have become successful and have shown the path of progress to others," the President said. In fact, India with over 4,200 start-ups has the third largest start-ups eco-system in the world, behind the US and the UK, Mukherjee said.