Gross enrolment ratio should go up in higher education: T.G. Sitharam

T.G. Sitharam emphasizes the need for increased gross enrolment in higher education to achieve India's vision of 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047.

Former All India Council for Technical Education chairman T.G. Sitharam has said that the biggest challenge for India to become ‘Viksit Bharat’ in 2047 is how the country engaged the youth in higher education.

“Around five crore children will come into higher education, if we achieve 50% gross enrolment ratio (GER) in 2035 as per the National Education Policy,” he said. Mr. Sitharam was inaugurating the National Science Meet organised as part of the 38th Kerala Science Congress that began at St. Albert’s College here on Friday.

“We need to engage them in our universities. We have a huge human capital, and the whole world is looking towards this talent more so in engineering and technology. We will require another 500 to 600 universities in the next 10 years,” he said.

Mr. Sitharam said India should become a product-development nation. “Only then will we be number one when we dream of ‘Viksit Bharat’,” he said, adding that the government should become the first buyer of indigenous technologies.

He lauded engineering colleges for contributing to the transformation of the country’s technical ecosystem. These technical institutions have become hubs of start-up ventures and applied research, he said.

K.P. Sudheer, executive vice-president of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment; Nisha Mendiratta, advisor and head, Department of Science and Technology; Rajan N. Khobragade, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Kerala, spoke. Mayor V.K. Minimol inaugurated the National Science Expo held as part of the event.