Bhubaneswar, March 26: Technology holds the key to reforms in the higher education sector in India, said Sam Pitroda, chairman of National Innovation Council and advisor to the Prime Minister. He was speaking at the 43rd convocation of Utkal University here today.
Dubbed as the “father of India’s communication revolution”, Titlagarh-born Pitroda said the old model of education that included lectures and examinations has become obsolete and calls for innovation. He stressed on the role of universities in creating and changing content to enhance the productivity and efficiency of students.
“The resources and tools are at hand. We just need a change of perspective. Universities must lead innovations and explore new frontiers instead of getting stuck in the past. We need to increase their collaboration with industry clusters to create new job opportunities,” he said.
Pitroda said the country has a dearth of qualified professionals and with a young population of over 550 million, around 20 million employment opportunities need to be generated every year. “We are known as the leaders in information technology but we have hardly made use of it. Therefore, we have a dearth of qualified persons. Despite investing 70 to 80 billion dollars on education, we are nowhere near our target,” he added.
The PM’s advisor also spoke about plans of setting up a national innovation portal to build a platform for all stakeholders for exchange of ideas, networking and accessing information on innovation in the country. “Another key initiative is to create university innovation clusters to seed innovations in our universities to make them dynamic places in this process. The power of information technology will take us to another level of productivity and inclusive growth,” said Pitroda.
The chancellor of universities, governor M.C. Bhandare, who was present at the convocation, also stressed on skill-development and capacity-building of the youth.
Meritorious students were awarded university gold medals, endowment gold medals and prizes for the academic session 2009-10, while honorary degrees were conferred on Justices D.P. Mohapatra, Sujata Manohar and Ruma Pal. Vaidya Bhagwan Das, J.P. Das, Gokulananada Mohapatra, Ratan Das and Chaturbhuj Meher were also awarded honorary degrees.
