Thought for the day

20th December 2008, Saturday

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent remarks about our higher education is worth mentioning here.


CHENNAI: Expressing concern over the constraints in the intake capacity of the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) that were denying opportunity to talented students, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday called for establishing more such institutions."There is enough evidence from the Joint Entrance Examination that for every student who got an opportunity to study in IITs, there are at least 3 to 4 who are as bright but are denied the opportunity because of the intake capacity constraints. This is highly regrettable because it denies opportunity to thousands of deserving young men and women. If India is to become a global leader in science and technology as well as an economic superpower, such talent must not go unutilized. Many more such institutes are needed," Singh said while inaugurating the PanIIT 2008 global conference at IIT Madras through videoconferencing from New Delhi. Access to quality education must also be provided to the poor and the disadvantaged, he said.