The Hindu Business Line : Varsities must become workshops for learning skills: Meghalaya Governor

SHILLONG: The country still needed 1,500 varsities to attain the gross enrolment ratio of of 15 per cent by 2015, Meghalaya Governor Mr Ranjit S Mooshahary said on Tuesday.

While there are about 11.5 million students, studying in 415 universities and 20,675 colleges spread across the country, there was an imperative need to have more universities within the next eight years, Mr Mooshahary said at the three-day 83rd Annual M eeting of the Association of Indian Universities.

The Governor, who was quoting the National Knowledge Commission reports about the country requiring 1500 universities by 2015, pointed out that 85 percent of the pupils in the higher education are in the humanities stream lacking the skills for certain v ocational work, while our present vocational courses can absorb not more than 15 per cent of the total student strength at the higher educational level.

“At the movement, our universities and colleges are doing not much better than awarding general degrees to the students. It will not be wrong to say they have become pass production units of degree holders without empowering the youth with skills for emp loyment and self reliance”, Mr Mooshahary said.

Referring to Meghalaya, the Governor said the state has made a beginning by allowing establishment of private universities which would develop into the hubs of vocational education. In this regard, Mr Mooshahary underscored the need to enable the private -public initiatives in education to grow by extending financial and logistic support especially for establishing new universities for vocational facilitation.

“Universities must become the workshops for learning skills and techniques and not merely for dispensing degrees year after year without relevance to the needs of the time”, the Governor said -. PTI

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