New Delhi, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Wednesday said if Indian universities have to excel and find a place in the Times University ranking and QS Ranking 2019 lists, they would have to make strenuous efforts to attract the best talent as faculty, grant autonomy to educational institutions.
The universities would also have to adopt cutting edge technologies and courses, highlight India’s strengths in special knowledge areas, support innovation and encourage incubation for start-ups, create an ecosystem for high quality research and push for quality through a credible world class accreditation framework, Mr Kant said while speaking at the valedictory session of the 14th FICCI Higher Education Summit 2018.
He said a brand is not about advertising, marketing and promotion; it is about creating a great product that is capable of attracting talented students and faculty to its shores. At present, the number of Indian students going overseas for high education is 10 times more than foreign students coming to India for study.
The government, he said, on its part has taken a host of measures during the last two years to create an ecosystem for creating a top class higher education system in the country.
These include creation of world class ‘Centres of Eminence’, greater freedom to enter into collaboration with reputed international institutes, encouragement to joint degree programmes, graded autonomy to well-performing institutions, setting up of incubation hubs to nurture innovation amongst start-up businesses, opening up online education and strengthening the accreditation system by introducing multi accreditation agencies to impart competition and achieve excellence.
In this scenario, the Niti Aayog CEO expressed confidence that India has the potential to become the research and education hub of the world.
“India’s branding era in the field of education has just begun and in the next decade ‘Brand Education India’ would turn into a reality,” he said.