Vice President on Monday said that the entire education system of the nation needs an overhaul as it is producing students with the degrees and not the minds with critical thinking power and employable skills.
He emphasized on the need of restoring India as the prime destination of the quality education in the world and said that the number of educational institutes should be increased in the nation to meet the growing demands of the students who wish to pursue the higher education.
Naidu also asked the private universities to reserve a certain percentage of quality education for the students from the poor section of the society as private sector education has gone out of bounds for the students from the marginalized sector.
"Majority of our colleges have become mere breeding centers for producing students with degree certificates rather than individuals with critical analytical skills and innovative thinking," Naidu said while addressing the convocation of Lovely Professional University here.
"Most of the times, students passing out of colleges do not possess employable skills. It is a matter of concern that we are turning out lakhs of students each year from the portals of our colleges with emphasis only on theoretical knowledge. We are merely adding numbers and not individuals with critical minds,"," he added.
"There is a need to completely overhaul our education system. We cannot allow the status quo to continue. We need to change the system and the change has to be for good," he said further.
He further said that is is high time for the universities to forge organic links with the industries to provide pragmatic and real-time knowledge to the students as per the requirements of the industries.
"Although, some universities are acting in this direction, it is not enough and there is a need for a paradigm shift in teaching and learning methodologies of our universities to enable the students face global competition effectively and with confidence," he said.
"But simply an increase in numbers without ensuring quality would be detrimental to national interests. We need to restore India's ancient glory as a prime destination of quality higher education," he said. He further said that it is also the responsibility of the private sector to play a vital role in meeting the demands of the education.