Times News Network

Bangalore, May 10: Standards cannot be lowered in the industry or academia for students who may not be competitive or for those who may have lost out in the employment race, Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy said on Tuesday.

Focus on educational infrastructure.

Speaking after receiving the Citizen Extraordinaire Award from Rotary Bangalore Midtown here, he said higher educational institutions will have to be given the autonomy to decide on issues relating to academics.

He called for greater autonomy for educational institutions and greater effort to build educational infrastructure.

International business does not care about race, colour or about who comes from which section. International revenue does not bother about such social restrictions. India will have to take note of this, he pointed out.

The state would be generating 200,000 jobs in the next couple of years, while it produced only 100,000 engineers in all.

"We will need outside support. We, in fact, already have outside support to the industry. We need to be more tolerant and welcoming."

He pointed out that software exports were growing at 35 per cent every year but educational infrastructure was not. Bangalore generated $8.3 billion of the $23 billion exports the state generated in software, he said calling for an increase in share of software exports from 37 per cent to 70 per cent .

Murthy commended the state for contributing 20 per cent of the state’s GDP and the highest disposable income. "No other industry has done this so far. We can only do better."

He called for more star hotels to accommodate international businessmen visiting India in these globally competitive times. He also called for greater access to English-medium schools for poor students.