Higher Education vis-a-vis India

Was privileged to attend a seminar on higher education in India. The distinguished speaker was President of University at Buffalo, Shri Satish K. Tripathi. He made some really good suggestions while comparing Indian Higher education with the U.S. It would be great if we could use some of these methods;-

1. There should be more thrust on research work. I wonder how many patents are filed together in India?. In U.S. around 20-30 patents are filed by a single university every year. I am sure the no.s in India would be much less.

2. One aspect of discussion was that Universities in U.S. take care of local population for sure . Apart from generation of employment Universities get local support for many projects because they are able to convince the locales how the university and projects would be beneficial to them ? This ensures funding for university and also interest in education as well. Even royalty is shared by universities and this is how the whole society is transformed.

 The condition  of Universities in India can be very well thought of . Apart from giving degrees they are not interested in anything else. Some of them are able to award Ph.D where the guide would have written the whole thing and submitted . The student would be Dr. .....after that. How can such system give a beautifull society?

3. It was saddening to hear that only 8-10 % of our school passouts are able to go to next stage of higher education. For a good society it shud be at least 30%. Just imagine the infrastructure needed. This would be really possible when everybody including teachers do their Job well and encourage education rather than degrees.

Universities do need funds but they can be arranged only when the whole society contributes.

4. One more thing which was really good to observe was that some academicians were opposed  to the idea of  imparting vocational training after school. There is an idea that such tender age is too tender to decide  what aptitude the youngster has and what field he should choose. It also discourages higher education.

Really something to think about for Mr. Sibbal....