President of India - Pranab Kumar Mukherjee - during the
fourth convocation of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) at Lucknow
told,
"... there is a need to change the mechanics of
rendering education and the time for it is now... our universities must deliver
education of international standards... Every university should identify one
department that can be developed into a Centre of Excellence".
India has a very long and successful history in
University education. Many of our universities are more than a century old and
churned out (still churning out) a large number of students every year.
However, world went through a lot of revolutionary changes
in between. However many of our universities, remain transfixed in the old
world. Instead of providing qualitative, dynamic as well as contemporary
education, slowly but steadily they became places for mass production of
graduates and post graduates. In short, when many other prestigious
universities invested more funds in research in basic sciences, churning out
research papers etc we missed the train. Number of Indians, studied in Indian Universities
and found their place in Nobel laureates list tells a shocking story.
In this situation, president's suggestion to identify a
department (say, Biotechnology) in a university (say, University of Pune) and
transform it into a centre of excellence should get more attention. This will help
it to focus (and specialize) more on a chosen field and produce concrete
results.
However, just providing suggestions won't transform
anything. Along with providing funds, we need to create an environment were
taking research as a career path should be more rewarding, bringing
accomplished teachers (from India and abroad), direct collaboration with
industry, focusing on research to find answers for practical problems as well
as theoretical conjectures, more exchange programs with international
universities etc need to be implemented.
Sajeev.
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