President Pranab Mukherjee said that there is a need to compete globally for research-ranking in order to compete in global scale and to become world-class. He said that right now we are emphasizing on the building the nation through building institutions and "we are now increasingly being called upon to think about the role of universities in the larger global context".
The president was present at the launch event of the book titled 'Future of Indian Universities: Comparative and International Perspectives'.
The book is written by the noble laureate Amartya Sen and is edited by the vice-chancellor of the OP Jindal Global University, C Raj Kumar.
“The universities of today are required to compete globally for research- ranking to help build world-class universities,” the President said.
He further said "that as the future universities gear up for global competition to find their place on the tables of institutional rankings, let us not forget the difference between world-class and world-minded".
Speaking at the program Noble Laureate said that the needs of today are much more complex and to solve them more freedom and autonomy of the higher education is needed in India.
"We need to think about why India does not rank among the top 200 universities in the world. The difference between Indian universities and those in other countries is that they are autonomous and free from political policies and obstacles."
The present acting chairman of the UGC was also present on the event and said that there is need to monitor the quality of the higher education not just by students but also by parents and teachers as well. "Indian universities have tremendous potential and need to accelerate their pace. This can only happen if we have good leadership. The public sector needs a huge transformation in the field of higher education, and private universities need to be a model for quality and excellence," he said.
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