BENGALURU: Lack of access to modern education that provides critical thinking skills is causing India to lose out on its competitive edge in the world, according to National Education Policy committee chairperson and former ISRO chairperson K Kasturirangan. He was speaking at the release of a commemorative edition by Public Affairs Centre, a Bengaluru-based think tank, on account of completing 25 years.
The edition called ‘Citizen at Heart’ has 28 essays penned down by experts from various fields. “The gove r n m e n t says the literacy rates are increasing but what kind of education are children exposed to? Today, anybody can have an intellectual discourse on the future of liberal democracy but millions of people cannot afford this luxury,” said Kasturirangan, who is also the chairman of Public Affairs Centre. “There is a need for scientific knowledge and there has never been a more urgent need for it.
I chaired the National Education Policy with an aim to give young minds a diversified curriculum,” he said. “We focused on early education and brought in a new structure to secondary and university education. We need to strengthen science and social science to achieve development.”