BANGALORE: University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Prof Ved Prakash on Sunday said that fragmentation was ‘killing’ higher education.
Addressing heads of various institutions from all over the country at the 4th National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) Accreditation Award ceremony here, he said “We are killing higher education by fragmentation.
Many disciplines like Agriculture and Law have already moved out of the university system.
We are reacting to the system by setting up exclusive universities. This is due to lack of policy research.” He urged academicians to look at higher education holistically. “Higher education is no longer on the exteriors of national agenda. It is now the centre of all planning. What we need is visionary policy initiatives,” he said. Prof Prakash further added that vocationalization of higher education was not working.n “We need people with the right skills to respond. There is severe shortage of skilled workforce and unemployment existing together,” he said.
While stressing on the need for strengthening research and making India a hub for education, Prof Prakash said that universities here are not successful in attracting scholars from different parts of the world.
12th Five Year Plan “The priority in the 12th plan is to ensure excellence and equity. Our approach to higher education would be stratified to ensure inclusive growth of education. We have asked for Rs 1.84 lakh crore. Let us see how much we actually get this time,” said Prof Prakash. On the current Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), he said, “I feel we have already touched 20 per cent.
In the 12th plan, we want to add 2 million children into education every year by increasing the intake capacity of existing institutions,” he said, adding that the ambitious 30 per cent would be reached if individual sectors are concentrated upon.