Post-Kapil Sibal HRD stint, Shashi Tharoor slams students' standards

The university system was not producing "well-educated" graduates to meet needs of Indian companies, giving an opportunity to firms to enter the sector in the "guise" of training, Minister of State for Higher Education Shashi Tharoor today said.

Kapil Sibal was Minister of Human Resource Development from 22 May 2009 – 28 October 2012.

He also said that the national education policy in the past has been out of step with the times.

"The major problem remains that our national education policy in the past has remained out of step with the time. Whereas countries in the Middle-East and China are going out of their way to woo foreign universities to set up campuses in their countries, India turned away many academic suiters who have come calling in recent years," he said.

Speaking at a two-day Higher Education Summit, Tharoor said, "Companies are entering the higher education space in the guise of training. Our University system simply is not producing well educated graduates to meet the needs of Indian companies today."

The HRD Minister said there will be no need for many Indian students to go abroad to study if good higher education institutes were set up in the country. "We will also work towards putting our reform agenda back on track," he said.

Tharoor said there is a proposal to establish 50 centres for research in frontier areas of science, design innovation centres, innovation centres in different universities and also research parts of the IITs and other technical institutions.

"If finally established, it would transform the research environment in our country," he said.

Tharoor favoured expediting setting up of National Mission for teachers and recommendations of the Narayana Murthy Committee and the Kakodkar Committee besides increasing the spending of 2 per cent on research.

The minister said with the ranks of educated unemployed in the country swelling in the absence of adequate employment opportunities, there is possibility of their falling prey to the activities of terrorists and Maoists.

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