Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 8
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pitched for dovetailing higher education and technical education to the demands and contingencies of the present and changing environment and emerging challenges.
“Our technological and R&D institutions will play a major role in the upcoming decade - ‘India’s Techade’,” Modi said while interacting with directors of centrally funded technical institutions through video-conference.
Modi’s enunciation during the interaction echoed his earlier views of building modern India on the basis of past tradition and culture.
He said the desired paradigm change in the country’s education matrix would enjoin upon the institutions to reinvent and re-evaluate themselves, develop alternative and innovative models.
More than 100 heads of institutions joined the prime minister for this interaction.
The prime minister lauded the R&D work done by these institutions towards meeting the challenges posed by Covid.
He appreciated the efforts of young innovators towards providing quick technological solutions.
“Our higher educational and technical institutions need to prepare our youth for continuous disruptions and changes, keeping in mind the fourth industrial revolution.”
He underlined the need to develop an ecosystem of technological education in Indian languages and translate global journals into regional languages.
The prime minister noted the improvement in the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education in the past few years and observed that digitization of higher education can play a big role in increasing GER.
Batting for R&D development, Modi said it would boost the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, which will be fulcrum of dreams and aspirations of India in the coming 25 years when the country celebrates 100 years of Independence.
Modi batted for focusing on developing futuristic solutions in fields of education, healthcare, agriculture, defence and cyber technologies.
He homed in on the imperative of good quality infrastructure in higher educational institutions to ensure that products associated with Artificial Intelligence, smart wearables, augmented reality systems, and digital assistants reach the common man.