The Hindu
Mangalore, Dec 13: China has added 10 institutions to the list of top 500 universities in the world in the recent past whereas India could add none, according to Chairman of Union Public Service Commission D.P. Agrawal.
Delivering the 35th Bhaikaka Memorial Lecture at the 24th Engineering Congress at the National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NIT-K) here on Saturday, he said only a few institutions including Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, figured in the list.
According to Mr. Agrawal, world-class universities attract talented students. For instance, in Harvard University, 19 per cent of the student population are from abroad, Columbia University has 23 per cent of international student population while no Indian university has one per cent of international student population.
As the quest for world class status among universities has become more prominent, Government of India has decided to establish 14 innovation universities during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12) as per the recommendation of the Knowledge Commission. Pakistan has announced a 4.3 billion dollar project to establish nine world-class engineering universities in collaboration with European institutions.
Mr. Agrawal said the proposed institutes would create more reliable and credible admission processes and autonomy in administration, teaching and research.
He regretted that none of our universities had done work worth a Nobel Prize. Those who had managed to win the coveted prize could do so because of their own ingenuity.
Mr. Agrawal was of the opinion that commitment to public was integral to the mission of any world-class university. It is wrong to say that education should be privatised and that only fabulous pay can lure people into taking up teaching profession. “Forget the notion that private institutions motivated by profit and charging sky-high fees w ill do the trick.” Talented teachers seek job security and decent pay, he said.